


The Louder the Song

by internetname



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 10:12:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 46,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2464523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/internetname/pseuds/internetname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Picard's about to die when Q shows up to offer him an amoral bargain. Is Q a creep, or just desperate?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Louder the Song

**Author's Note:**

> This Picard and Q are not from the Bond series. I wanted to do another first-time story, and since I really couldn't give them another bout of amnesia, this is what I came up with. I wrote this years ago as Varoneeka. I love feedback and comments and things. :-) I need to thank the incredible patience and kindness and general wonderfulness of Ruth Gifford, the beta-reader from Heaven.

  
Captain Jean-Luc Picard looked at the detonator and knew he wouldn't be seeing the Enterprise again.

Then he stopped looking at the detonator and sat on the floor of the derelict ship. The actual bomb was behind a forcefield seventeen decks below, and the only way to reach the deck itself was through a series of crawlways that made Jefferies tubes look spacious. He would have gone anyway, of course, except that he had only two minutes left. There was a time for giving all one's effort into an heroic attempt, and a time for just meeting one's end with aplomb. 

He didn't much like the idea of dying, so much so that he'd once made a fool of himself rather than die early of a malfunction in his mechanical heart. But he wasn't afraid of it. He could face it now at least with the knowledge that he had gotten the away team out before the Romulan's undetected automated alert system had snapped its shields in place, and that his ship was getting itself to a safe distance from the explosion now only one and a half minutes away. 

He was sorry for the pain his death would cause his friends and crew. Beverly and Will and Deanna and Data and Geordi would all blame themselves unnecessarily for this. It had been his decision to beam over, his choice to remain behind. And if he hadn't been so blinded by the opportunity of studying the abandoned Romulan vessel, they wouldn't have almost lost the away team in the first place. 

It was hardly the only bad choice he had made lately. He sometimes wondered how long his career would continue on the momentum of his earlier triumphs. He'd thought, he really had believed that he'd gotten himself back to full strength after Locutus, but now, after realizing he would never really be separate from them, never really be free of their song... 

He wasn't the same man. He wasn't the same captain. He should have smelled the trouble on this ship before it almost got the team killed, before it did get him killed. 

No, he thought as he stretched his legs out before him and crossed his arms, finding comfort in his own acceptance of what could not be changed, there was no one to blame but himself, and, considering the information on the Romulans which they had gathered from this mission, he felt his own life actually wasn't too bad a trade. 

"Comfortable, Mon Capitaine?" 

Picard turned quickly to his right to find Q in his captain's uniform sitting in much the same way Jean-Luc was sitting, legs stretched out, arms crossed. 

"Q!" He couldn't think of a less welcome sight in the universe. 

The entity shook his head ruefully. "Even when you're about to die you can't be happy to see me?" 

"Come to tell me this is all due to some accident I had with a cheese grater twenty years ago?" 

"Your sense of humor makes one of its rare and delightful appearances. Congratulations." 

Picard's eyes went to the detonator as he prepared to make a point about how little time was left for Q to ruin his day, but what he saw made the words stall out. The detonator had been showing the loss of time in very small units, close in size to hundredths of a second. Now, the numbers were frozen. 

The captain turned back to frown at Q. "What are you up to now?" he demanded. 

"Well, frankly, I thought I would never have a better time to make a little bargain with you." 

"What bargain?" 

"One for your life, mon ami. No death before your time. No guilt for your crew." 

"In exchange for what?" Picard's voice was heavy with suspicion. 

"Why, for you, of course, Jean-Luc." 

"For me? What is that supposed to mean?" 

Q rolled his dark eyes and allowed his full lips a scornful smirk. "You're the densest Frenchman I have ever met." 

And just as Picard was about to retort that he was tired of Q's enigmatic hedging and childish games, Q reached out and lightly stroked the side of the man's face. 

"You can't mean..." 

"Can't mean what?" 

"You...you're a Q." 

"Yep." 

"So you couldn't...possibly...this is some sort of trick, or insult, or joke." 

"If I just rolled you over, Jean-Luc, would you believe me then?" 

Picard felt the heat rush to his face while outrage and discomfort erupted from his stomach. 

The entity sighed. "Honestly, Jean-Luc, I don't think I could have been more obvious with you if I'd painted 'Do me, Picard' on my forehead. And now I'm tired of waiting for you to see things clearly, and I'm not about to get casually rejected now that I've been so appalling blatant. 

"So," the dark eyes narrowed. "What's it to be? Are you going to promise to let me enjoy your incredibly sexy body, or are you going to allow yourself to be blown to bits?" 

"What is it you really want, Q?" 

Picard didn't for a minute believe Q actually wanted to have sex with him. He could easily believe, however, that Q wanted to humiliate him, to embarrass him, to make him beg or crawl or simply endure Q's scorn for whatever pleasure it gave the nearly omnipotent creature. 

In a sort of fugue of gestures, Q shook his head and rolled his eyes and sighed. "I believe I really am going to have to convince you." 

And then suddenly Q simply launched himself onto Picard, who was then on his back, his wrists held down by Q's hands, the long body of his nemesis pressing down along the whole length of his own. That sensual, petulant face was only an inch or so away from his Picard's, and the captain felt his breath catch and his body shrink from the contact. Yet he was horrified to feel something deep within himself react to this. Could Q feel it too? Suddenly, he wished more than anything that the bomb would go off, that he would die now, quickly, before Q could see anything else that would provide the entity with more ammunition. 

And then Picard wasn't wishing anything, wasn't thinking anything, because Q had reached down and was kissing him, deeply, passionately. He'd never kissed a man before, not like this, at any rate, and though this wasn't really a man, it felt absolutely nothing like kissing a woman. Q was strong and heavy, but his touch was gentle and almost reverent. Even though Picard forced himself not to kiss Q back, inside he was responding. Warm, skilled lips were drawing out that response, and Picard almost moaned with it. 

As if sensing that, Q's kiss grew even more ardent. The effort it took Picard to be still under these skilled movements wasn't as bad as trying to keep the Borg Collective from controlling his mind, but it ranked right up there. 

However, it was impossible that he should respond to Q, this thing that had nothing but disdain for his whole species, nothing but apathy and contempt for all the things Picard himself held precious. 

Q broke the kiss and bored his eyes into the man's confused stare, his hips gently and slowly rubbing against the narrower pelvis they covered. 

"You still don't believe me?" The question was actually more an incredulous statement. 

"What would I have to give something like you?" Picard asked flatly. "What would an omnipotent being want with such a paltry thing as Human sexuality?" 

Q pressed down a little harder, making the captain aware that he was about to become seriously aroused, as his expression grew fierce. "I don't care whether you believe me or not. This is the bargain. Do you want to die or do I get your body?" Picard stared at him, still unable to accept that this was happening. 

"Think about your crew," the entity hissed, "and how awful they will feel. Think about what you won't be able to accomplish when you're dead. Perhaps the Borg will attack again and you won't be there to save Humanity. I promise you, when you're gone, I'm not going to help your pitiful species ever again, and they won't last long." 

"Q, I don't..." 

"Just your body, Picard, not your soul, and only at night, or when you're off-duty. Is the torment Riker will feel really worth saying no to me? Where else is Data going to find a surrogate father? Do you really want Beverly to cry her rather unattractive little eyes out for you?" 

"What is the point of all this? I can't believe for one minute that --" 

Q cut him off with another kiss, a rough one this time, forcing open the man's lips with his jaw and probing insistently while Q's hands left his wrists to smooth down his chest. Picard felt both violated and shaken, dimly aware of a desire for Q not to stop, while simple anger made him growl down Q's throat. 

"Your virtue or your life, Mon Capitaine?" The dark eyes stared into his glittering outrage. "Oh, and the lives of your crew as well." 

"The lives of my crew? What do you mean?" 

"We should have realized they weren't just going to watch while you got blown up. They've devised quite the rescue plan, but it won't work They will all be killed, I promise you. But I could see that it is successful. I could make this all just one more adventure for the USS Enterprise. Come now, is my price really so high?" 

Picard felt the sweat gathering on his body. Somehow he knew that Q wasn't lying, that his ship and crew would be destroyed without his intervention. Suddenly, the bargain was easy to make. 

"Whatever it is you want from me, to save my ship, you know you can have it," Picard growled. "You've known that since Farpoint." 

"So I have, Mon Capitaine," Q's voice said softly. 

And then Picard was alone, watching the detonator mark off the final seconds of his life, until the transporter beam caught him up, and he was safely aboard the Enterprise. 

"Riker to the bridge," his first officer called, even as his eyes lit up in deep joy at the captain's safe return, "get us out of here!" 

Three days passed, and Picard grew more tense with each hour. Q made no appearance, and as he had promised, the incident with the Romulan ship became just one more close call in the Enterprise's vast repertoire of narrow escapes and reckless adventures. They moved on to chart the Hebronis Nebula, conducting diagnostics and considering a variety of system upgrades, and all seemed normal and smoothly running. 

Troi, of course, sensed the tension in him, so he kept his distance and muttered something about a report to Starfleet headquarters that needed working on. Otherwise, no one noticed that he barely slept, waiting for Q to appear and demand his payment. 

He still did not believe that that payment would be sexual, or strictly sexual. He had no doubt that Q would be humiliating him, perhaps even hurting him, perhaps even damaging his relationship with his crew beyond repair. 

And it was this last which truly prevented him from sleeping, which tormented him in dreams when he did manage to drift into unconsciousness. How would his crew feel if they knew that he had agreed to sell himself, to Q of all people, for them? 

And beyond that. After Q's kisses Picard had finally admitted to himself that he did, indeed, feel a deep, dark attraction to the entity, and had for some time now. The idea of being forced did not appeal to him, but the memory of that closeness, of Q's skilled lips on his own, made him warm even as he shuddered in dread. The knowledge that he wanted Q so badly that even the prospect of touching him and being touched by him under duress was not sufficient to eradicate his desire shook Picard so deeply he had trouble concentrating on his command. Even in the daytime, when he was supposed to be "safe," he found himself starting at shadows. 

After his fourth day of this, almost staggering with fatigue, Picard went to his quarters and had made it halfway to his replicator for a cup of tea before he realized that, finally, Q had appeared. 

Turning to look at the dark-haired, dark-eyed form sprawled out on his sofa, Picard was aware of an incongruous relief, even as he began, for the first time, to feel actual fear. This was going to be awful, but at least now he would know what Q truly planned. 

"Not even going to say hello?" Q asked softly. 

Suddenly Picard was aware of a desire to scream and rail at the entity, and the rage that filled him was intense and terrifying. 

"If you're going to rape me," he grated out, "then do it. Don't ask me to relax and enjoy it." 

Q smiled faintly, almost, Picard would have said under different circumstances, affectionately. 

"I have no intention of doing anything to you that you're not going to enjoy, but I can tell you don't believe that." 

Suddenly Q came off the couch and walked the few steps to stand in front of the captain. Picard could feel Q's body heat and clenched his hands into fists at his thighs, wishing he could fight, still wanting to scream. 

"My, my, my, you do look frightened, Mon Capitaine. You know, it's not too late to change your mind." 

"How?" 

"If you want to go back to that Romulan ship and be there when it explodes, knowing that your ship and crew are also destroyed in the explosion, I'll take you there right now. Say the word, and our agreement is over." 

Picard felt another wave of rage wash through him, leaving him a little weak with the strain of his control. 

"You know I won't do that, Q." 

"I don't, actually." Q's eyes narrowed and he leaned forward just slightly as his voice dropped. "This really kills you, doesn't it, Picard? And yet weren't you willing to trade so much more of yourself -- your mind and your soul -- simply for Data's life to that appalling female? Now, why is it, do you suppose, that you could make a deal with the devil so uncompromisingly, and now can't give me so much less for so much more in return?" 

When Picard didn't answer Q's faint smile returned. "Do you think it might be because you didn't really want her and you do want me?" Q pulled back slightly and walked around behind Picard, then, as the captain had thought he would, whispered into his ear: "Aren't you in more danger now, Jean-Luc, even though you know I won't really hurt you?" 

"Do I?" Jean-Luc asked, ashamed to hear his own voice tremble slightly. 

Q chuckled softly and then finally, after so many times threatening him like this, finally brought his lips to Picard's ear and delicately kissed along the soft curve, slowly, down to his lobe. 

Picard felt his breath catch painfully and put everything he had into remaining still. The desire he'd felt for Q was completely gone now, except for the almost overwhelming desire to scream. 

"You're shaking!" Q exclaimed in his ear before the entity pulled back and stepped in front of him. Picard focused on his Starfleet collar. "Look at me, Jean-Luc." 

The captain raised dull hazel eyes to Q's puzzled frown. 

"I don't understand. I know that you want me, and you must have realized by now that I really do want you. I've saved your life more than once, and helped you save Humanity more often than I can count. Why can't you just...give in to this?" 

"Because you're forcing me!" The scream almost came out with that one. "How can this be anything I want when you're making me prostitute myself for my ship and crew? I thought --" He had to stop to draw in an embarrassingly ragged breath. "I thought you...cared for me, in your own way. I was even beginning to trust you!" 

"I do care for you and you should trust me." 

Picard barked a laugh that actually hurt his throat. He realized he'd never been so tense, all through his body, in his life. Perhaps if he flinched too hard away from Q he would break his bones. 

"Jean-Luc, if I don't push you a little, I'm never going to be able to have you, and I can't have that. I've restrained myself for you this long and to this point, but --" 

"But ultimately I'm just some sort of upstart plaything, a pet who won't mind his master, an inferior lifeform whose dignity and right to his own body mean nothing!" 

Q had become very thoughtful. "So, the key issue for you here is the question of choice?" 

"Of course it is!" 

"And what if I were to tell you that choice is an illusion, that neither of us have chosen to be here together, or can change in the slightest what we are to become to each other?" 

"I'd say that was the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!" 

Q smiled at him sadly. "I thought you'd say that." 

The entity turned and walked to the window, his hands behind his back, contemplating the stars while Picard willed his heartbeat to slow and his body to relax. He was getting a terrible headache. 

Q turned to look at him with unforgiving eyes. "Do you agree that you made a bargain with me: your life and the lives of your crew for your body? That we made this agreement in good faith? That your body now belongs to me, every night of your life, for the rest of your existence?" 

Angrily, Picard's hands went to the fastening of his uniform. 

"No!" Q snapped, stilling him. "It's just a yes or no question." 

A muscle worked in Picard's jaw, flexing his temples. "Yes." 

"Yes, what?" 

"Yes, my body belongs to you." 

Q nodded. "But despite that, if I actually try to collect on what you owe me, you'll hate me, and hate yourself when you enjoy it." Picard's mouth opened. "It's still a yes or no question, Jean-Luc." 

Picard stared at him a long moment, then, "Yes, it will do irreparable harm to how I think of you." 

Q shook his head slowly. "You don't know how long I have been waiting to touch you, Mon Capitaine. The temptation simply to walk over there and strip you and bend you over and take you and watch you come is...extraordinary." 

The vulnerability in Q's voice and expression were so at odds with his words that Picard could do nothing but watch, well aware that he was still shaking. 

"So I will make a compromise," Q said finally, with overt reluctance. "I will never give up your nights, but you get the choice over your body back if you agree to hate neither me for wanting you, nor yourself for wanting me back." 

Picard tried to work that one out on his own for a minute, then had to ask, "What does that mean?" 

"It means that I'm staying, and that I'm going to be here, every night, no matter what. Or I should say, every time that you're off-duty. You won't be able to make me leave. However, what we do together will be up to both of us. I've made my intentions clear, but you have the right to say no. I have the right to try to get you to say yes, but if you say no for eternity, then so be it. I will at least have the pleasure of your company." The dark eyes actually twinkled at him a second before Q scowled rather fiercely. 

"Do you agree?" 

"Considering everything, I'd be a fool not to." 

"Hm. Well, I'd say I just made a whopping concession. You could thank me." 

The relief that had gone through Picard was too great to suppress, and the captain sank onto his couch to put his hands on knees that still trembled. 

"Actually," his startlingly wry voice said a moment later, "what you've done goes a bit beyond thanks, but 'Thank you,' if that's what you want to hear, Q." 

"I told you, no more ownership issues. Thank me or not, whatever you want." Q sounded furious, but he stayed at the window, scowling. Picard watched him carefully. 

"Well, Jean-Luc, if I weren't here, what would you be doing now?" 

"Sleeping." 

Q shrugged. "Then go ahead. You might as well get used to me sooner rather than later." 

"I was...planning on a shower." 

"I thought you were headed for the replicator." 

"For some herb tea." 

"Well, get that or don't." Q stalked over to the armchair Picard liked to read in and flung himself down with a sour expression. 

Picard turned and walked quickly into his bedroom, just this side of fleeing, and then on into the bathroom. Once the door was shut, his breathing began to return to normal, and he actually sunk to a crouch on the floor. 

The mix of feelings in him was hard to separate, hard to understand. He felt overwhelmingly relieved that Q wasn't going to rape him. He felt pleased with Q for realizing that what he'd been attempting was wrong. He was furious that Q hadn't realized that from the beginning. He felt more than slightly trepidacious that Q meant what he said about being there during his off-hours, every night, every day. He also felt, though he had to reach down deeply for it, a very faint disappointment that Q hadn't kept the matter out of Picard's hands, that he had made him responsible for his own body again. 

And this last would have stunned and humiliated Picard, except that he understood it. All those years with Troi at his side had taught him a thing or two about facing himself. He did want Q, with a dangerous intensity. And on his own, he would never allow Q to be that close to him, would never trust the entity that far. Yet in addition to being attracted to Q, he had, against all reason, started to like him. And so in time Q would get bored and leave, and something...fascinating would be gone from Picard's life. 

After a few minutes or so, Picard stood and took off his uniform, aware that he and it were more than a little sticky with perspiration. He recalled what Q had said about getting used to Q's being there, and smiled wryly at the thought of ever relaxing around the omnipotent creature. 

The shower felt good, and he stayed in there longer than usual because of that and to put off seeing Q again as long as possible. Finally, with his skin a little red and his fingertips puckered, he dried off and stood in the middle of the room, realizing with chagrin that he hadn't remembered to bring in his pajamas. 

Wrapping a towel around his waist, he squared his shoulders and walked through the door into the bedroom, only to find that Q wasn't there. 

Quickly, he went to the drawer which held his sleeping attire, slipped into his pajamas, put the towel in the processor, got into bed and told the computer to turn off the lights in the bedroom. Perhaps Q was tired of this already. 

"You're quite the clean freak, aren't you, Johnny?" Q's voice said from the doorway. 

"I suppose," Picard said carefully. 

"Lights off!" Q called to the computer, and the front room went dark, leaving the only illumination that from the stars over Picard's bed. The captain couldn't help noticing that Q had changed from his uniform into pajamas not all that different from his own -- loose shorts and a crew-necked, short-sleeved shirt of black silk -- and that they were more than a little disturbing as his companion walked to the bed and got in on the other side, pulling the comforter up to his chin before rolling on his side to look at Picard. 

"How about a good-night kiss?" 

"No." 

"Can I at least hold you while you sleep?" 

"No." 

"Very well." Q rolled back over on his back and closed his eyes. Picard watched suspiciously for a long time, but Q's breathing was even and deep and somehow soothing, and eventually the man fell into a solid and profound sleep. Three nights' waiting had taken more than their toll. 

The second Picard was asleep Q's eyes opened and the entity quietly rolled back over on his side, the dark eyes watching the slow rise and fall of Picard's chest through all the long hours of the night. 

  
Picard called Riker and Troi into his ready room and sat behind his desk with his tea steaming and his monitor on, well aware that he'd put his shields in place for what was going to be the hardest conversation he'd ever had in here. 

_Q_ had been in his bed this morning when he'd woken up. 

"Morning, darling," the entity had said, smiling faintly into Jean-Luc's eyes. 

"Are you always going to say that?" 

Q seemed to consider this a moment. "You should probably get used to it." 

Picard rolled his eyes and got out of bed, snagging his uniform on the way to the bathroom. When he came out again, he found the bed made and Q in the front room with a breakfast of coffee and croissants on the table before him. 

Picard almost smiled ruefully at the sight, until he noticed there were three cups. 

"Q," he warned. 

Q shrugged and spread his hands. "I didn't invite her." 

The door chimed on cue, and Picard stared at it in some dismay. He looked back at Q, trying not to plead with him to leave. 

"I'm not going to be your dirty little secret, Picard." 

The door chimed again, and with his shoulders squared, the man snapped, "Come." 

"Good morning, Jean-" Beverly stopped walking into the room and stared at the dark-haired form seated calmly at the table. 

"Morning, Bev." 

Picard was suddenly assailed by a vision of strangling Q, but he said merely, "We have company." 

"I see. Hello, Q." She tried a little smile and sat down, feeling a little over-prim but unable to deal with her shock in any other way. She couldn't help feeling a sharp similarity between this moment and the scene she had once walked in on between Jean-Luc and Vash. 

"Coffee?" Q asked, picking up the pot while Picard sat down at the table with a somewhat tense expression. 

"Thank you," she said, eyes going back and forth a bit as Q poured. Sugar and cream were taken care of, and rolls buttered and jammed. 

"Any interesting cases in Sickbay, Doctor?" Q asked suddenly, pretending not to notice when Beverly spilled a bit of coffee into her saucer. 

"Uh, no, not really. I had a bit of a problem with a strain of Esltian Mumps last week, and I was worried that there might be an outbreak, but it seems to have been contained." 

"Actually, you might want to Check Lt. Parthins one more time." 

Crusher's eyes widened slightly, and she set her coffee cup down with care. "Thank you...Q." 

"More coffee?" 

Picard almost groaned, sitting in his ready room, thinking of that endless meal, with Q being so polite and Beverly shooting him incredulous and suspicious glances every three seconds. When it had finally been long enough for Jean-Luc to make noises about going on duty, Q had nodded regally, told him he'd see him later tonight, and then vanished, clearing away the table as he flashed out. 

Beverly had turned to him with eyebrows raised. 

"Q plans to spend some time aboard the Enterprise. He's...conducting some sort of experiment. I'm not sure of his intentions. When I am, I will inform the crew as necessary. I see no reason to make his presence generally known at present, considering the alarm it will doubtlessly cause." 

"Should I stop coming to breakfast for awhile?" 

"No! I mean, do whatever you feel comfortable with, of course." 

"Of course." Crusher nodded, then rose from the table with a smile. "Well, I'll see you at the afternoon meeting." 

Picard had left directly after her, not wanting to see Q flash back into the room for more "togetherness." 

The ready room door chimed. 

"Come," he said, smiling his best captain's air as Riker and Troi entered with looks of mild interest. He motioned them to sit down with the hand not holding his worry crystal, and then realized he hadn't the slightest idea how to start. 

His officers sensed that immediately, of course. 

"Astrophysics is almost done with their use of the lateral sensor array," Riker reported. "That means everyone has had a shot at using the new system at least once and we'll get a reduction in complaints for a while." 

"A short while," Picard said with an automatic smile, then cleared his throat with authority and launched into it: 

"Q made an appearance on the ship last night, and has given me reason to believe he may be...visiting us for some time to come." He held up a hand at their expressions. "Now, I do not believe at present that he intends to interfere with ship's systems or operations. I think, _I know_ he has some sort of ulterior motive, but I cannot tell what that is at present, and until I do know, I don't want the crew distracted unnecessarily. In time, with patience, he will make his intentions clear, and then we will deal with him. Until then, I just felt it would be wise for you to know of his presence." 

Troi and Riker nodded, and though she knew the captain very much wanted that to be the end of the conversation, she couldn't let it finish here, and told Picard as much with her eyes. She had often sent him such a look to communicate her need to see him in private. What he was saying and what he was feeling had almost nothing to do with each other. 

Therefore, she was more than a little surprised when he shook his head. "No, please, Counselor. That's why I'm seeing the both of you together. If there's something you want to discuss, I'd like Will to be here." 

Riker frowned, but Troi realized the unspoken wish. He was using them both to keep from getting into something too intimate or revealing with the other. 

However, Troi didn't feel like being intimidated out of doing her job today. She knew as well as Picard did that he was not feeling like his usual self, that he hadn't been since they got back from the 21st Century. 

"Captain, I've never known you to be this...unsettled by Q's appearance. If you sense a genuine danger to the ship, it's part of our duty to know about it." 

Riker projected silent support for the counselor's rare show of force. 

"I do not believe the ship to be in any danger from Q." 

"I'm sorry, Captain, but you don't quite believe that." 

Riker's eyebrows shot up. "Sir, if Q has made any sort of threat regarding the safety of this crew..." His voice trailed off as Picard all but shot from his chair to stand in front of the room's large window. Several seconds ticked by in silence before Picard finally spoke. 

"Q saved the ship from the Romulan derelict. Your plan to rescue me didn't take into account that the Romulans had redundant proximity detectors." He turned to shrug at the stunned first officer. "It was a fine plan, Will. It just couldn't account for everything." 

"Considering that Q helped you save Humanity, Captain, why do you feel that his saving the Enterprise constitutes a greater threat?" Troi asked. 

"I made...a bargain with Q." 

"What sort of bargain?" Riker demanded. 

"A personal one. He wants to spend some time with me. For what purpose, I don't know." Troi felt his discomfort spike. She had the distinct impression he was lying to himself. "And until I do know all I can tell you is that he's going to be around, doubtlessly making a pest of himself, for a time. 

"In time," Picard continued in a tone that revealed he was trying to convince himself as much as them, "he will get bored with this game and move on someplace else. It's not as though saving the Enterprise involved any effort for him." 

"But you're worried that he might take back his favor if he doesn't get what he wants?" Troi asked. 

Picard let his sour feelings answer her for a time. "It wouldn't be like him to do so," he said finally. "And Q has had a hand in the Enterprise's fate since Farpoint. It may simply be that I'm uncomfortable with the reminder. When he does finally show his hand, I have every confidence in the crew's ability to handle the situation as well as it can be handled. Until then, I would like your suggestions on whom else should be notified." 

"Data and LaForge will be able to keep this news to themselves well enough, and I'd like them monitoring ship's systems for signs of anything unusual," Riker said. 

"Agreed." 

"Dr. Crusher should know," Troi stated. 

"She does." His tone wasn't correct, and at their expressions he explained: "Q was talking to me at breakfast." 

They nodded. Riker stood up. "Well, I'll explain the situation to Data and Geordi." 

Picard nodded back, well aware that the tension in the room had dissipated not a jot, and felt uncharacteristically resentful of his life. It struck him as a bit more than he should have to bear: being pursued by an omnipotent entity while his empathic counselor looked on! 

Picard shoved the feeling down before that same counselor insisted that he talk about the feeling, and watched his officers leave with relief. Troi had been more cloying than usual since they'd returned from 21st century Earth, since she'd felt how he'd been affected by the Borg's voices in his head, since she'd felt...what? What did she know about his weaknesses? 

Picard frowned at himself fiercely, trying to force away that doubt. Troi would never do anything against him, no matter what she knew. She was only trying to help. She -- and Riker, and then others -- they weren't the enemy. 

He tried to stop frowning now and couldn't. He was worried that Q would appear. 

But the day passed without any sign of Q, and Picard plowed through quite an impressive amount of work trying to keep his mind off his personal problems, staying a little later in his ready room, and then a little later on the bridge, than he was used to. 

Only after 20:00 did he turn for his quarters, more than a little anxious that Q would suddenly appear to demand his company in front of others. He had been on duty all day, though, he told himself firmly, hardly having stopped for lunch. 

As he neared the door to his quarters, Picard had a sudden vision of the years ahead of him: Q waiting in his room for him to return, night after night of that face and that voice asking him how his day was, threatening him with bargains, taunting him with being weak or obtuse, or savage or child-like. 

But surely Q would get bored and go away soon. 

His quarters looked just as he had left them that morning, no Q, no sign of Q. 

Daring to hope that Q had already grown tired with this game, Picard cautiously got one of Nella Darren's herbal tea blends from the replicator, removed the top layer of his tunic, and retrieved the book he had been trying to read, _The Crying of Lot 49_. It wasn't his usual sort of book, but he found the symbolism interesting, and the idea of an underground American post office in the 20th century more than a little amusing, considering what had happened in the 21st. By the time he had finished the novel, his tea was gone and it had become quite late. 

He didn't try to fight his own instinct to get undressed in the bathroom, and came out after his shower in his pajamas to an empty room. Sighing in the beginnings of true relief, he pulled back his comforter and slid into bed, closing his eyes with relish. 

A warm hand lightly trailed his right thigh. 

"Q!" Picard sat up in bed to face the smiling entity. Black pajamas once again. 

"Sorry not to have shown up earlier, Jean-Luc, but you seemed desperate for a little peace after talking about me to others all day." 

Q launched himself forward at that, and again Picard found himself on his back with Q on top of him, his wrists held down by strong hands while Q's long body rubbed slowly against his own. Unlike before, there were no thick layers of uniforms between their bodies. If anything, the warm silk of their pajamas simply allowed the feel of Q's undulating hips to be smoother and more disturbing than if they had been naked. 

"I thought you were going to respect my right to say no to you." 

"So say it," Q challenged softly before lowering his mouth to Picard's and again using his skill to draw forth a powerful response. Q's lips were both gentle and insistent and the man under them felt a sudden rush of lust that made him forget to keep his mouth closed. The warm tongue that thrust over his own sent signals all over Picard's body, and he found his hands, no longer restrained, were actually grasping at Q's arms. 

Picard jerked his mouth away. "No, Q." 

"No to what?" the softly sensual voice sighed. 

"No. Stop kissing me." 

"All right," Q said with disappointment, then closed his eyes and slightly changed the angle at which he was sliding his pelvis over Picard's. Jean-Luc gasped as he felt the swelling flesh there caress his own, and tingles of pleasure began to dart out from his groin all the way to his fingers and toes. 

"Stop that as well!" 

Q sighed, but didn't alter his movements. "Stop what this time?" 

"Stop...rubbing yourself against me." 

Q complied, leaving himself pressed firmly to that central spot. 

"Get off me, Q. I mean it." 

Q sighed again, then rolled them over so that Picard was on top of him instead, deftly sliding his hands down the front of Picard's open top to find his nipples. Jean-Luc hissed and shuddered as those nimble fingers twirled over his sensitive flesh, and he couldn't help being fascinated by the look of pleasure that spread over Q's face at his reaction. Q's left leg hooked over him suddenly, pressing Picard closer to him even as the captain finally put his hands flat on the bed on either side of Q and pushed away. 

"Stop touching me, Q!" 

And Q let him go immediately, even moving back a little in the bed while Picard sat up. 

"Is this your idea of leaving me alone?" 

"I never said I would leave you alone, I said I would listen when you said no. And I did." 

"So 'Stop touching me' is the magic phrase?" 

"For tonight. If you use it too often, though, I think I'll have to resort to touching myself." 

Picard glared at him with wide eyes. Q waved a dismissive hand in the air and stretched back on the bed, keeping to his side of it. 

"Done now, Mon Capitaine. Truce for the night. You really are tired and need to sleep. Who knows what sort of interstellar bad guys may appear in the morning?" 

Slowly, eventually, Picard laid back down in his bed, keeping himself still and tense until the sound of Q's steady breaths again lulled him into unconsciousness. 

  
This business of dressing in the bathroom must be getting old," Q remarked three days later as Picard grabbed his uniform and headed for the shower two seconds after waking up. Q kept greeting him in unexpected ways when he woke up and when he returned to his quarters, kept kissing him and touching him. The closeness was starting to wear on him, and now the captain had had disturbing dreams all night and woken up with the beginning of an erection. That Q had pretended not to notice -- or just might possibly not have noticed, as Picard got rid of it immediately upon waking -- only made Picard more uncomfortable. This morning's shower was going to be cold. 

"I still have no intention of performing for your amusement." 

Q sighed, and Picard found the sound was getting annoying in the extreme. "I would be more than happy to leave the room if you simply asked me to...and gave me a kiss on the forehead." 

"Q, that's ridiculous." 

"Well, I have to have some fun around here. I'm beginning to feel a little unwelcome." 

Picard simply turned and walked into the bathroom with his uniform, emerging fifteen minutes later clean and clear-headed and ready for work. 

"I have an early meeting with the senior staff today," he growled at Q, who was still in bed, lying mostly on his stomach and curled around Picard's pillow. "No breakfast with Dr. Crusher." 

That was hardly new. Crusher hadn't returned after that first morning. "She must be so disappointed." 

Picard left without another word, and spent the day as the perfect captain, at least, in all the ways in which he still felt confident. He was attentive to his staff, diligent with his paperwork, and patient with several inconveniences and annoyances as the entire crew participated in a series of battle drills. They would continue for the rest of the week, followed by an extensive round of diagnostics and maintenance overhauls. The Enterprise-E was about to reach its second year mark in service, and Picard wanted her to sparkle. 

He wanted, fiercely, for everything to be right again. Starfleet was scrambling once more to get the fleet back up to full force after the ravages of the Borg attack. Who knew whether the Romulans would take advantage of their weaknesses? Who was to say they would be able to maintain their staring contest with the Klingons, or their dangerous posturing with the Cardassians? 

The flagship should set the example, the standard and the acme for the other ships to pursue...and her captain was feeling less and less up to the challenge with every morning he woke from his nightmares, every meeting he confronted the unanswered questions on his crew's faces. What if the Borg came again? Could they somehow keep the world safe while Earth licked its wounds and stockpiled its arsenal? 

Somehow, having saved Humanity so often, Picard felt the weight of his overwhelming responsibilities as never before. 

So great were his concerns that there had been several longs periods during the past few days when he managed to put Q completely out of his thoughts. He even turned towards his quarters for dinner at his usual hour that night before remembering what might await him there. 

Once he was headed for his rooms, however, he would not allow himself to be frightened off. He had to deal with Q sooner or later, and perhaps tonight he could convince the entity that he had no intention of ever giving him what he at least claimed he wanted. 

Squaring his shoulders once again, Picard strode through the door and was tackled. 

"Oomph!" went the captain as his body hit the carpet, so tangled up in Q's arms and legs that he seemed to fall in slow motion. Nevertheless, he was breathless and slightly stunned by the impact, and so didn't manage to avoid being rolled on his back as Q took him in his arms and kissed him soundly, thoroughly, murmuring between forays: 

"I've missed you, Mon Capitaine." 

"Stop kissing me, get off me, don't touch me!" 

"Your lips say 'no no no,' but your eyes say 'yes yes yes!'" 

"Damnit, Q!" Picard bellowed, uncaring who might hear them out in the hall. "Stop this now!" 

And Q was up and off him immediately, walking casually to the table. "I believe you need something to eat, Jean-Luc." 

"Q." Picard spoke wearily, not managing anything better yet than a sitting position on the floor. "This...this isn't..." 

"Are you going to complain, Mon Capitaine, after I have made so many concessions and lived so completely by my word?" 

Picard stood and straightened his uniform. 

"Could you at least refrain from grabbing me when I enter the room?" 

Q thought about it a moment. "No." 

Picard shook his head, still trying to ignore the complaints of his body -- getting louder now every day -- that Q had felt so good against him, that his kisses had been perfect, and that the look in his eyes had promised so much he really wanted. It had simply been a long time for him, and Q was highly skilled. That was all. And if he couldn't control himself so much as even to resist Q, of all people... 

"So what will it be for dinner, then?" 

Distracted, Picard responded automatically, "Whatever you'd like." 

Q's eyes lit brilliantly, and Picard had time only for a half-second of shocked regret before Q rushed at him again, this time knocking him gently onto the sofa. 

"You," Q whispered roughly, color suffusing his face as his eyes darkened further with lust. "I'd like you." 

And then Q was kissing him again, really kissing him now, with an intensity which left Picard aware -- when he could think -- that the entity had been holding himself back until now. Q's lips pressed and twisted and slid against his, leaving him breathless and aching. While Q's hands caressed up and down the front of his uniform, again that long warm body pressed against him, almost burying him in the cushions. His tongue once again expertly twined around Jean-Luc's, and the man realized dimly that he was growing accustomed to this intimacy, that it was beginning to feel right and natural and almost unbearably sensual. 

"Q, I --" he managed to get out before those lips claimed his again. Q actually whimpered slightly, and the small noise made Picard shudder with an answering need even as his hands went to Q's shoulders with the intention of pushing that body away from his. 

But somehow he was pulling on those shoulders instead of pushing, while the front of his uniform opened under Q's hands even as Q's tongue breached him once again. Q's fingers went eagerly to Picard's chest, where they encountered the tank underneath. Q ended the kiss gently. 

Picard's eyes, closed against the feelings washing through him, opened wide at the sound of tearing cloth, and he looked up into Q's face to see determination give way to delight before his head bent down to suck gently at one of his pale aureoles. The pleasure it caused all through the man's body made him gasp. 

This had to stop, now. Picard was becoming aware of losing himself as the stabs of desire all through his body were increasing in warmth and ferocity. He was starting to touch Q back, starting to need to feel his skin against his own. 

_Fake skin,_ he told himself fiercely. _This body on top of me is a lie, a sham, a puppet to a creature powerful enough to destroy the galaxy. I don't want this. I don't want this!_

"I don't want this, Q." 

The lips and fingers stilled, and ragged breathing from both of them was the only sound or movement for a long, long minute. Then Q looked directly in Picard's eyes, boring into them with bright lust, and Jean-Luc felt stripped naked and laid bare. The air in his lungs was fire, and the burning of his body seemed to feed off every breath. 

Then, in one smooth movement, Q slid his right hand down the front of Picard's uniform, past the waistband of both his uniform and his underwear, and the captain gasped in near shock from pleasure as that large warm hand wrapped delicately around his erection. He couldn't keep his back from arching, or his legs from sliding just slightly apart. Oh, but that felt good. It had been so long, far too long, and Q knew just how to touch him, even within the constriction of his clothing. 

Picard moaned aloud when Q's lips returned to his right nipple, then traced a brief pattern to his left. As he sucked hard, his hands touched Picard more firmly, and sparks seemed to rise up from the fire of Jean-Luc's body into his mind. 

"Tell me no," Q said quietly, his lips brushing the sensitized nipple below them. When Picard made no reply other than raising his hips just a bit to meet the stroking of his hand, Q licked the nipple roughly, then blew on it and listened to Picard moan again, louder this time. "Tell me no now and I will get you some dinner." 

The chuffing noises Picard made might have been desperate attempts at laughter. 

"But understand, Jean-Luc, I'm only going to try again, and again, every night until you realize what I meant about lack of choices. I knew..." His stroking hand increased its tempo and Picard began to move more deliberately in rhythm, wanting more and getting it. "I knew from when I first saw you on the bridge of your little ship that I had to be here like this with you." 

Q smiled into his half-closed eyes, drinking in the incredible sight of desire upon the captain's aquiline features, and increased the pace of his strokes again. "Good thing for me you're so worth having, eh, mon ami?" 

And then Picard realized he'd had enough of just lying here, and even as he set his jaw to hold back the orgasm Q's hand was taking him to, his own hands went to the front of Q's uniform and opened it. The entity's eyes went wide and his breath caught as Picard roughly tugged at and parted the material, then reached down inside to find Q's own straining erection. Picard couldn't help his surprise at the incredible hardness there. Were Q really a man, that feeling would signify extremely urgent need. The tip had evidently been leaking fluid for some time, and his hand spread the warm lubrication easily. 

"Oh!" Q puffed, his warm breath reaching Picard's face as his eyes closed at the touch of the hand against him. And now they were stroking each other, moving awkwardly around the heavy cloth, chests pressed against each other, hips bucking. Picard's eyes were tightly closed, and Q's eyes opened now to gaze into his face. When Picard convulsed, Q was right behind him, and for several long, gasping moments, they both lay in their own private daze. 

Finally, with knowledge of what had just happened nudging its mocking way into his consciousness, Picard turned to look into Q's face, ready for whatever punishment the entity was going to administer for his weaknesses. But Q's eyes were closed and he seemed to want nothing more at the moment than to burrow into Jean-Luc's arms, having wrapped his own now tightly around the captain. 

Picard couldn't help asking, "What's wrong?" 

Q frowned, not opening his eyes. Picard waited patiently, surprised to find that his left hand had come up to stroke that dark hair. 

"I didn't expect that. I didn't realize...how good that would feel. I didn't want it to end. I almost used my powers to prolong...I almost..." Q just breathed deeply for awhile, and Picard realized he was no longer reacting as if this were an elaborate act. He tried to get his suspicion back, but it was so hard to get a hold of while Q clung to him like this. 

"Before, when I would think about you sometimes, I almost...did that to myself. I wanted to, but I could tell myself how silly it was and eventually I learned how to deal with it." 

"Q, are you telling me, in all your time being Human, even with...with Vash, you never...?" 

Q laughed a little bitterly. "She wanted to, in the beginning. Seemed to think it was odd that I didn't...but you were right. Human sexuality holds no intrinsic appeal for me." Finally, Q opened his eyes and Picard saw unmeasured depths and warmth in them that disturbed him more than anything which had yet happened that night. "Until I think of you, think of touching you. I used to laugh at Human genitalia, and how silly you ape-like creatures look naked, and then..." Q swallowed. "Then I thought of you without your uniform and suddenly it all didn't seem so funny anymore." 

Q's voice grew quiet as his dark eyes suddenly seemed to notice that Picard's uniform was still open to the waist, his torn tank underneath revealing now the pale circle of his left nipple. His hand came up to touch that spot, gently, softly, and when Picard's breath caught in a slight gasp, Q smiled to himself like a contented Cheshire cat. In fact, as he felt his blood beat warmly through his body, Picard had a sudden vision of Q disappearing completely except for that smile. 

"I've often seen a Q without a smile," Picard murmured, surprising the entity who had moved to trail his fingers over his chest, "but a smile without a Q?" 

And Q seemed to understand him completely, chuckling before moving his head forward and taking Picard's nipple within that smile. 

Picard had been about to say something about his age and Q's expectations, when he felt his blood begin to surge. 

"If you're so inexperienced," he ground out, not certain he really wanted to do any more of this right now, "then why are you so good at this?" 

Q's face rose up suddenly with an expression of wry delight. "Jean-Luc, why do you keep forgetting that I'm omnipotent? I'm good because I _want_ to be." 

Q couldn't have picked a worse thing to say if he had planned for an eternity. Shutters fell over Picard's eyes as his body stiffened and pulled away. 

"Let me go, Q," the captain snarled when Q tried to hold on to him. Recoiling, the entity let go and Picard stood and stalked into his bedroom. Q went completely still as he heard the captain undressing and then the faint sounds of a shower. 

Q realized he was a mess himself and cleaned himself off when...a thought occurred. 

Moving quickly, almost as if he were trying to move before he thought better of his plan, Q headed for the bathroom. 

Picard put his face into the spray and tried not to hate himself. 

How could he have forgotten what Q was: an almost omnipotent being who evidently was feeling curious and perhaps a little bored? The captain sneered at himself. He'd thought he at least still had some control over himself, but a few days in Q's company and he was...ugh. He didn't want to think about what he and Q had been doing, or about what they had almost done again. 

And then Picard heard the bathroom door open. 

Unable to believe that even Q would have the effrontery, Jean-Luc spun around and watched through the frosted polymer of his shower door as a dark shape stood on the other side. Picard realized he was trembling. If Q opened that door and came in, it would be enough to make him despise the entity completely. He would be able to resist anything Q did after that. It would be proof that Q was everything he suspected. One simple action on Q's part, not really such a step after his previous antics, and Picard knew he would be safe behind his disgust forever. 

But Q didn't open the door. The dark shape simply stood there. 

"Jean-Luc?" 

Picard didn't answer. 

"Being able to do whatever one wants and being able to _have_ whatever one wants are not the same. I want you, Jean-Luc, but I can't have you unless you agree. I thought it wouldn't matter why you agreed, or at least I was so crazy for you, _am_ so crazy for you, I thought I could blur the difference just a bit. 

"This isn't a game to me. Being able to wish myself into sexual skill isn't the same as being able to use it on the lover of my choice. I could fumble and ask questions if you like, but that would be the cheat, the lie. I want to be a good lover for you, Picard. I want to be the best you've ever had. I want you never to want anyone after me. I want to do things to you you've never thought of, so that you come back to me for more and more. I want you to take your disciplined belief that you should keep yourself from pleasure and toss it out an airlock. I want you to depend on me for pleasure, to turn to me to make you feel better than you ever have without me, so that you never, ever regret I'm in your bed every night. 

"And that's where I'm going to be, Picard, every night. I don't care if it's not fair. I'll keep my hands off you if you keep saying no. Maybe after a few years I won't try to make love to you anymore. I don't think I can promise that, though. 

"But I think you should realize what I'll never do, what I've never done. Perhaps it will only disgust you that I thought of doing them in the first place, but...I've never entered one of your dreams. I've never made a version of you I could control...or one I couldn't, for that matter. I've never made my dreams real even within my own mind. I've never made you forget something stupid or unpleasant that I did. I've never forced you or even planted suggestions in your mind. I haven't interfered with any of your relationships, except for Vash, and she wasn't exactly the love of your life, Jean-Luc." 

"Q," Picard's voice was so quiet the shower nearly drowned it out. 

"Mon Capitaine?" 

Picard closed his eyes briefly, feeling his heart pound, before staring again at that dark shape beyond the door. The symbolism was killing him. 

"Why didn't you do any of that?" 

"Because it wouldn't have been any good." 

Picard realized he was almost laughing, beginning to understand why Q had thought that bargain over the Romulan ship would work. From an omnipotent's point of view, perhaps it had seemed a fair approximation of simply playing a winning hand. "Why not?" 

"Because none of it would be _you,_ of course!" 

"Q." Picard realized he was beginning to tremble again, but didn't mind it so much this time. "What is it that told you not to come into my shower to talk to me? Is it something you've observed about Humans and bathing?" 

Picard's tone said plainly enough that this answer would be crucial, and Q seemed to think for some time before responding, carefully, "I don't need to walk in there to see you, Jean-Luc. And I can't pretend I don't know what you look like, because I wanted to know, but I haven't...looked at you, haven't watched you." One of Q's hands pressed against the polymer of the door and Picard felt sharp heat in the pit of his stomach. God, he did want Q. He was hard as a rock. 

"The temptations the universe offers the omnipotent must be overwhelming indeed." 

"Are you laughing at me, Picard?" 

For an answer, and after an extremely deep and only marginally successful steadying breath, Jean-Luc reached out a hand and opened the shower door. 

Q's startled gaze almost immediately dropped, hungrily taking in the sight of Picard's lightly soapy bare skin. His eyes lingered on that part of Picard's body which had responded so overtly to Q's long confession, before they returned their dark warmth to Picard's steady hazel gaze. 

"You're absolutely exquisite, Jean-Luc. Do you know that?" 

Trying to ignore his own deep blush, Picard let his eyes travel over Q's body, still in his opened Starfleet uniform. Q moved before he could look up again, and Picard was against the shower wall, his body pinned there with the urgent weight of Q's Human form, now in a quickly dampening uniform as his Starfleet boots slipped a bit on the shower floor. Picard tried to meet Q's eyes again, but then closed his own as the powerful wave of feeling from Q's kiss poured into him, weakening his knees and making him grateful for the solid wall behind him. 

"Can I do this?" Q asked into his mouth as he ran his hands down from Picard's shoulders, along his sides and then down to his backside, then up to do it all over again. 

"Yes." Jean-Luc was aware that the word was half-moan. Everything was making him feel all that much more overwhelmed. It was incredibly arousing to be here like this with Q. 

"Good," Q said, moaning a bit himself. He pressed a little harder against the man's warm body and suddenly seemed to realize that Picard was pulling at his now-soaked clothing. 

Instead of helping Picard undress him, however, he said simply, "You don't have to do that." And then Q was on his knees and taking Picard into his mouth with skill and precision and passion so great that Jean-Luc almost collapsed with the sensation. As it was, he put his hands out against the narrow walls to steady himself, wanting to tell Q to stop, to continue talking to him, but wanting more that Q would not stop. It was all the pleasure he'd ever felt from this form of sex and more, just as Q had promised, a combination of novelty and the suredness of someone who knew every particle of him. Q was doing everything he liked, stroking his hips and caressing his testicles, sucking hard and then gently, curling his tongue around him and stroking, even very lightly grazing his teeth over that taut skin before taking him in all the way, those full lips buried in his gray-black pubic hair as Picard fought down a new and different urge to scream. 

Kneeling on a hard floor in a wet Starfleet uniform wasn't very comfortable, but Q didn't notice. He was dizzy with pleasure and triumph that Picard was allowing this. Moreover, he could feel the shudders and involuntary motions throughout the man's whole body focused on this one secret part of him to which Q now had access. Q hadn't been certain what this would be like, hadn't realized the taste and the smell and the feel of it all together would be so overwhelming. He felt more intimately connected than he had thought he would be as well, that sweet-salt in his mouth that was Picard, as were the low groans of that rich voice, all velvet and heat, and all the man who had become everything he wanted. 

Picard felt his orgasm coming with sudden inexorability and threw himself into it, opening up to the wave of sensation, and thrusting his hips forward blindly, and then folding up all along his body as Q caught him and held him close, their legs tangled around each other's on the shower floor while the warm water continued to pour down. 

Q waited until Picard had regained his full awareness, then murmured with concern, "Your blood sugar is low. You need to eat something." 

Somewhere in his mind Picard was amused by that, and somewhere he was irritated, but primarily he was exhausted. Holding on to Q's body, he sighed and relaxed. 

It was morning when he awoke. 

His internal clock told him that it was just before his alarm would go off. He was in bed and in his pajamas. He felt clean and warm and deeply refreshed. 

Q was holding him in his arms, and Q's breath was softly caressing his neck. In a rush, what had happened the night before was there in front of him, and he felt himself tense up in his shoulders and back even as he told himself not to. 

However, Q did not react -- physically, at least. 

"'Morning, darling," that warm voice said in his ear. 

"Good morning, Q." 

"You have an early meeting today, I think?" 

"Yes." 

"Your regular breakfast then, but no Beverly?" 

"Yes." 

"It's still three minutes before your alarm. May I kiss you until then?" 

"I'd like to get up, actually." 

"Give me a kiss on my forehead and I'll let you go." 

"Q, I -- I need to think about this. About what's happened..." 

"Do you know that you are incredibly arousing? Everything about you is perfect, your voice, your body, the way you move, the things you say." 

"Q..." 

"I can't believe how good this feels, holding you. I held you all night and I still don't feel like letting go. I know I'm going to hold you every night while you sleep, unless you say no, but that isn't long enough." 

Picard really wanted to say something now. He just couldn't think of what it should be. Q's dreamy voice was getting more hypnotic with every word. 

"I can feel your heart beating, your silly mechanical heart that I find just as irresistible as the rest of you, and I can hear your blood rushing in your body, and feel your warmth, and the air filling your lungs, and I just want more and more of you. 

"The idea, the knowledge that if I touch you now your body will change for me is making me so excited I can hardly stand it. Supernovae have nothing on you, Picard." 

"I need to get up, Q." Picard's strangled voice revealed him completely, but Q didn't laugh or taunt him. Instead, a note of wonder crept into his words. 

"I'm making you excited, aren't I, just by talking to you? Your breathing is getting shallow and your heart is speeding up, just a bit." 

"I need to get up -- Q!" 

A hand had gone between his legs and was stroking firmly, and Picard felt the blood rush there as he let out a groan. It was somehow as if Q were training his body to respond to him. He hadn't gotten so instantly hard since he was in his early twenties. Within a moment he was fully aroused and straining while the entity watched, breathing as hard as he was. 

"Jean-Luc," Q said gruffly as he continued to stroke, "do you think you'd ever like to be inside me?" 

The images that came into Picard's mind at Q's words wrenched an orgasm from him as much as Q's hand did. 

And then his alarm went off, followed by the ship's computer softly telling the captain to get up. 

And then Picard was clean and dry and Q was gone. 

"Damnit, Q! Come back here!" 

But the entity did not return. Picard threw on his uniform, forced down breakfast, skipped lunch, spent the entire day being so perfect it made his teeth hurt, and then at the exact moment of the end of his shift marched into his quarters and was tackled again. 

"Oh, I've missed you," Q groaned, rubbing and kissing and stroking. 

Picard's body immediately responded. There was something irresistible and incredibly ego-boosting about having an omnipotent creature wait for him all day, jump on him like a family pet, and then know exactly how to touch him like a long-time lover. Picard himself, however, held back firmly. 

"Q, we need to talk." 

"Let me make you come once or twice first." 

"Q! We have to talk!" 

"Very well." Q stopped his movements, but continued holding down Picard's wrists as his body completely covered him. "Kiss me on the forehead and I'll let you go." 

"What is this obsession with your forehead?" 

"Those are my terms, Mon Capitaine," Q said with a campy leer. 

"You're not going to turn into a frog or something?" 

"More Picard wit! I'm in heaven!" 

Feeling his erection starting to nudge against Q, Jean-Luc reached up quickly and kissed the entity's forehead. Instantly, Q let him go and then helped him to his feet. 

"Dinner?" Q asked, snapping up a plate of Beef Wellington and salad, along with a glass of red wine. "We wouldn't want you falling asleep in the shower again." 

Picard frowned, recognizing that the meal precisely fit his mood even as his chest tightened at the memory of being in Q's mouth. He looked at Q, then back at the table more than once before he sat down and began to eat. In truth, he was very hungry, and though he knew he and Q had to talk, he couldn't seem to arrange an actual opening line. 

Q watched him eat in strangely companionable silence, then asked when he was almost finished, "Am I going to get to have you inside me tonight?" 

Picard couldn't help it. "Q!" 

"Don't pretend the idea doesn't appeal. This morning it made you come." 

Picard stood up and away from the table and then walked to the window. Before the stars had a hope of calming him, however, Q was whispering in his ear once again. "I want you so badly I can't think of anything but how you would feel. 

"You know," Q's tone had become oddly conversational, knocking the man even further off balance, "one of the things that's most ridiculous about Humanoid sexuality is that one of the partners must be in a submissive position? Most sentient lifeforms in the universe figure out something much more mutual in the course of their evolutions. But not Humanoids. Oh, no. They have to complicate matters by having to decide who gets to be on top." 

"Q..." 

"I think we should take turns, but I suppose I'll have to wait a while for mine." 

"Q! Stop it! Damnit!" 

"If I stop you'll just figure out some new way to say no." 

"I'm not ready for this." Picard spun around, well aware that Q would probably try to start kissing him again, and crossed his arms like a shield. "Don't you understand? I don't trust you. I can't imagine trusting you that much." 

"You've trusted me with more important things than your body, Jean-Luc...more important to you, anyway." 

"It's not just...physicality we're talking about." 

Q's eyes dropped and almost tangibly caressed the man's body, and his voice came out a little lower. "That's true. Are you waiting for me to tell you that I love you, Jean-Luc? I thought I made that clear already. You're shaking again." 

"Give me a little distance, Q." 

"I can't. Given your own propensities you'll hold me at arm's length forever, wanting guarantees when all I can offer you is devotion." 

"Devotion? Is this your idea of being devoted to me?" 

"No. This is my idea of pestering you into bed. The devotion comes later, and it's bad form to sneer at a god's devotion, you know." 

"You're not a god." 

"Haven't you ever read 'Leda and the Swan?'" 

"That's hardly an attractive comparison." 

"Well, perhaps it's just that nothing can hope to compare at all." Q reached out and stroked Picard's face, tenderly, slowly, and Jean-Luc argued with himself the whole time about moving away. 

"I didn't molest you in the shower, you know. Not after you fell asleep. I just put you in your pajamas -- you are never to wear any other kind of sleepwear, you know -- and tucked you into bed. I didn't even stare at your naked body much." 

The hand was continuing to caress him, and Picard began to wonder how much of this he was expected to take. 

"I'm not ready," he said finally. "I'd like the evening to think. Could you just go away just for a few hours?" 

The hand dropped to Q's side. "Kiss my forehead first." 

Moving carefully, his eyes keeping close watch on Q's body, Picard stepped forward slightly and moved his head up to reach Q's brow. It was a bit of a stretch for him, he noted ruefully. 

And once Picard was off-balance with his face pointed up, Q easily took him in his arms and brought his own mouth down for a kiss that went on and on, skillfully and passionately. Q once again drew out a deep, unthinking response that Picard was simply losing the ability to withstand. His arms went up around Q's shoulders and his body leaned into the warm acceptance of Q's embrace and his higher brain functions began to shut down. He could not remember wanting something this much for a long time, if ever, and he couldn't help feeling that this time, resistance really was futile. 

So when he felt Q's hands moving over his backside, he chuckled rather than shouted, a noise he instantly regretted when Q picked him up. 

"What are you doing?" he demanded, feeling horribly silly and fighting the urge to kick his legs. 

In a few long strides, Q had arrived at the bed and set Picard down even as he joined him, covering the captain's body in what had become his trademark position. The man moaned softly at just the weight and heat of the entity on top of him. 

"Please don't say no," Q murmured as his body began its rhythmic caress and his hands worked at removing both their uniforms. After wrestling off their tops and realizing how difficult it was to get at the rest without releasing Picard -- whose eyes had just begun to take on that dazed look Q recognized as his victory -- he muttered, "Sorry, my dearest," and snapped his fingers to remove the rest of the barriers between their bodies. 

Now Picard was groaning with the sudden contact of that warm, smooth, soft skin against him. Q felt absolutely wonderful, and the things Q was doing to him felt even better. Nimble fingertips were finding all of his sensitive spots along his ribs and across his chest while the kisses became longer and deeper. Q's tongue was warm and the perfect combination of forceful and gentle. It wasn't just that Q was male-like that separated this experience from all others, or even that he was skillful. It was the reverence in his movements, the way he made Picard feel pampered, almost worshipped by the extraordinary care of his touch. The desire to refuse this pleasure was ebbing completely, and he wanted, profoundly, to relax and allow himself to be adored by Q's mouth and hands. 

And then once again it wasn't enough. Picard wanted to touch Q as well, and brought his hands up from where they'd been clutching his bedspread to run lightly along Q's sides, smiling against warm lips as the body atop him shivered. He smoothed his hands now against his back, over his shoulders, and felt the responses deepen in intensity. 

"I'm not omnipotent," Picard murmured as Q went over to nibble on his ear in just the right spot. "I need you to tell me what you want, what feels good." 

Q actually laughed, a breathy sound that made his shivers increase slightly. "I don't think you could touch me without its feeling good...unless you're pushing away, and you're not going to, are you?" He began kissing Picard's jawline. 

"I seem to be incapable at present." 

And then Q stilled and pulled his head back to look into the man's eyes. 

"You do want this, don't you? I'm not...doing something wrong?" 

Picard found those questions difficult to process. He'd never had anyone do so many right things at once. "What?" 

"I promised to respect your choices, and...well, you're not going to accuse me of breaking some new Human taboo in the morning, are you?" 

If Picard weren't so completely aroused he would have collapsed in exasperation. "You want me to answer that now?" 

"Well, you Humans have such odd ideas about --" 

With a growl, Picard twisted for leverage and rolled them over so that Q was under him. While those brown eyes stared up at him in shock, he tried out his own kisses on those full lips, which immediately responded, as he trailed his fingers over Q's chest, seeking out his nipples and doing to them what he liked having done to his own, stroking and twirling and twisting gently, and was rewarded with Q's heavy groans into his mouth, more shivers, and an extremely urgent erection pressed into his thigh. 

"Please," Q groaned. "Please do whatever you like with me. Anything you want." 

But Picard had to admit he didn't know what he wanted. Q's body was wildly arousing, but confusingly so. He couldn't just shake off a lifetime of having made love strictly to women, and though he could think of one thing he knew at least theoretically how to do, he wasn't really sure he wanted to take Q in his mouth. 

In fact, he wasn't sure he wanted to be here at all. Turning the tables on Q's aggressiveness had seemed like a fine idea at the time, but now the entity was moaning and growing harder under his touch and he didn't know what to do. 

The dark brown eyes opened to look up at him, pleading. 

"Don't you want to be inside me, Jean-Luc? I promise it will feel good." 

Picard was certain it would, but he wasn't certain why. The thought of doing _that_ to Q made his whole body react once again, surging blood to his erection, which was urgent enough already. The reaction confused him. He'd never even done _that_ with a woman, never felt the urge strong enough to ask for it. Now, he didn't trust his own motives. It would be wrong, even if Q only meant a slight part of what he was saying, to do that to Q when he felt no more for the entity than curiosity and lust....and, he had to admit, some genuine affection. Could that be enough? 

Oh, but he was lusting sorely after Q's body now, he reflected wryly as he bent his head to that warm, soft skin and traced a pattern of kisses on that chest and felt that body tremble and heard it moan. 

What would it be like? But how could he be wondering that when this was _Q_ he was talking about? And yet, if he said no Q would just keep pestering him. Perhaps this was the way to get rid of him. But that was not reason enough actually to have sex with him. 

And so he pulled back and looked once more into that face, for the first time with true fondness, and whispered, "Q, I'm sorry, but..." 

That was as far as he got before the body under his flashed. Before he could get angry that Q was just leaving him like this, he was looking down at a woman, a beautiful woman with Q's eyes, long brown hair, and icy pale breasts. 

"What is this, Q?" 

"I thought you might like this better," the woman's rather husky voice said. 

Q's new body was certainly beautiful, but the man felt his arousal weakening. He was starting to be aware of his nudity most unpleasantly. 

"Or this?" a slightly altered female voice asked from a Human female body that looked more like Q's usual form. 

Picard sat up, his frustrated erection heavy and painful. "It makes no difference to you, then?" 

Q sat up, a man again. 

"It makes an enormous difference to me, Jean-Luc. This form," he waved at himself, "is more what I am than any other shape could be." 

"What about your natural shape? Your real shape?" 

Q frowned, trying to sit cross-legged and calmly discuss his lifeform while overtly aroused. "I can't appear that way outside the Continuum, and even then, it's not really just me. Alone, outside, this -- what you see -- this has become what I am. I've spent the equivalent of centuries in this form now, what with one thing and another." 

"So it's not just some...affectation to you?" 

"Mon Capitaine, what do you think I'm after? Do you think I have a friend waiting under the table to catch us in the act? I believe I'm going to be the one in the more compromised position." 

"Don't, Q." 

"Jean-Luc, I can _see_ that you want me." 

"But I don't love you, Q." 

"I never asked you to! I wouldn't believe you if you claimed to!" Q closed his eyes with a shuddering breath, then opened them fiercely. "Tell me what to say or do to get you inside me. Name it. Anything." 

Never before had the captain been more ashamed of his personal behavior. Making Q say that was worse than any womanizing he had done in his youth, any distance he had forced between himself and a friend, any cruelty he had done to end a relationship cleanly. 

Looking at Q now, listening to that simple plea, he could admit only, "I'm not sure how this works." 

Lights danced suddenly in Q's eyes, and Picard was aware of something twisting in his stomach. More lust, he supposed. He was trembling with it. 

"I'll walk you through it," Q promised, practically beaming as something flashed into his hands. Picard realized what it was and flushed even as his body increased its burning ache and his erection returned to its earlier urgency. Q scooted closer to him on the bed, took a scoop of lubricant, set down the jar, warmed it between his hands, and then reached for Picard's penis. The man couldn't help closing his eyes as that oiled warmth prepared him, but he opened them quickly, wanting to see the expression on Q's face as he did this: solemn and focused while his large hands shook just slightly. 

"Q." The entity didn't look up. " _Q._ " 

Q met his eyes, and Picard reached out for the back of his neck and drew him in for a long, deep kiss, trying to put into the physical connection whatever it was he was feeling and found so impossible to say. When it was over, Q sighed and turned and rolled over on his hands and knees. 

"Take some of that on your finger and then put it inside me," Q urged softly. 

His own hands were shaking, the captain saw, as he momentarily ignored Q's instructions and reached up a hand to run along Q's smooth side and then down his thigh -- deep shudders responded -- and then lightly over his buttocks. He dabbed Q's anus with a fingertip, and watched his body start almost violently. 

Sensing Picard's hesitation but not its cause, Q whispered, "If you want to skip this part, you can." 

"Won't it hurt you? Or are you going to use your powers?" 

"If I wanted to use my powers I wouldn't be here in the first place. I'm omnipotent. If I want an orgasm I can just whip one -- Oh!" Picard's lubricated finger was inside him, and he couldn't believe the feeling. It hurt a bit, and there was faintly a feeling of indignity, but mostly there was just an urgent need for more. 

"Is this all right?" that rich voice asked, concern evident, and Q began to relax, forcing his muscles to loosen. "You're so...I can't see how this won't hurt you." 

Picard knew, of course, that some men had this sort of sex all the time, but it still seemed frightening and vastly unlikely. 

"You feel good," Q gasped out, lowering his head and resting on his elbows. "Move your finger around, then add another when you can." Picard was reminded of Q's words about submissive positions and tried hard not to think about being in Q's courtroom or the eighteen people killed by their first encounter with the Borg. The trial was part of the Continuum's plan, and that meeting with the Borg had helped to save Humanity from being assimilated. 

And yet this was the entity who had put him in that ridiculous Robin Hood outfit and kept showing up in his bed and...of course, that last had a different meaning from what it used to. 

"Do you really want this, Q?" He felt the muscle loosening up now, and probed harder with his finger, wanting to be in that tight space rather fiercely. This was unbelievable! He was going to fuck Q! And somehow Q wanted it. 

"Do you want me to beg? I will if you like." 

"No." Frankly, listening to that sensual, tangible voice beg would pretty much undo him right now, and he had no idea what would happen then. Taking position behind his firm ass and feeling ever more dizzy with the thought of what he was going to do, Picard took more lubrication and pushed it inside Q with two fingers. 

"Hurry," Q urged, spreading his knees and arching his back. 

And Picard found himself in position and pushing forward and the pressure began to envelop him all the way along, all around -- 

"Oh, Dieu!" This was wonderful, tight and hot inside. 

"Slowly," Q urged, that voice thick now with pain, hands gripping with white knuckles little fistfuls of the comforter. 

Shot through with horror, Picard began to retreat, only to have Q protest as he leaned back: "No! I'm sorry. It doesn't hurt! Don't stop, please, don't --" 

"Shhh, shhh," Picard soothed, just staying still now, about half-in, throbbing against that incredible warmth and tension. His hands went from gripping Q's hips to running light touches over his back and thighs. Acting on sheer instinct, he leaned down and kissed the pale, damp skin of Q's back, and felt the body shudder deeply and then jerk. With shock, he recognized the noises Q was making. 

"Don't cry." Jean-Luc's voice was thick now as well. "Don't cry, Q...mon petit. Don't cry. Don't you want me to stop?" 

"No." The dark head shook violently, giving him glimpses of a reddened face and bright flashes of tears. "Please, no. Don't stop." 

"But I can't stand this. I can't hurt you like this." 

"It won't hurt if you go slowly. It's not bad." 

So Picard tried moving slowly, just a little in and out, and he felt, eventually, Q's body relax around him. He kept his motions as smooth as possible, wishing he had pushed in more lubricant and that this felt a little less wonderful. It was so hard to restrain himself. He realized he was biting his lower lip. 

"Q, you've got to tell me if this hurts." 

"Doesn't anymore. Please, just keep fucking me. Ohhhh, I need this so much. I've wanted you so much...for so long..." 

And he had. All those empty centuries of wanting. Still, Q couldn't believe his own words, the pitiful and abject nature of his own requests, and it had hurt, terribly at first, but now it really wasn't hurting so much anymore, and something warm and tingling was moving through his Human body out from that heat in his ass. His muscles were relaxing more and more, and Picard's strokes were getting longer and deeper. And more than that, more exciting and incredible, this was Jean-Luc Picard, the man himself, not being forced, not really, choosing at least a little to be here with Q like this, sharing with him this extreme Human intimacy. 

Q hoped Picard was enjoying this, only able to hope since he was keeping away from the captain's mind where he knew he was not wanted. He thought he must feel somewhat good, because Picard's breathing was audible and his hands were now firm on Q's hips, pulling him back, pulling them gently together in a pleasuring rhythm. 

And then it really didn't hurt anymore. Instead, it felt so good Q could hardly stand it. His whole body was enjoying this, heat running all through him in tingling waves, and his erection was straining and pressing against his belly, and he could feel now the strength of Jean-Luc inside him. His legs were trembling and his muscles were burning and his whole smoldering body was erupting into slow flames. The pleasure of it was better than even he had dreamed it would be, and, suddenly, in the fog of his mind he had a vision of the rest of his existence: trying to get Picard to do this again. 

"Yes. More. Please. More." He shouldn't sound so demanding, but he couldn't help it, and besides, Picard responded quickly, driving into him now with some force. 

"Are you...sure this...isn't...hurting you?" the man asked from between his grinding teeth. It was so hard not to come, but he would no more climax before a male partner than he would a female one. 

Q moved his body back in response, driving Picard in harder, and suddenly the angle and pressure were perfect. With a roaring groan and a deep convulsion that again felt even better than the entity had thought it might, Q came, spurting out all over the bedspread and massaging the cock inside him to force out the overwhelming release that Picard had been shoving away from himself for so long, battling the incredible pleasure of being inside Q with the concern he'd felt for hurting him. But concern and caution were blocked out in a hot rush, and he thrust hard as he came inside Q, shaking through the aftershocks, falling onto his partner's back and feeling him collapse onto the bed. 

As soon as he came back to himself, Picard felt anger at his own selfishness, and moved to get off the gasping, flushed body below him. 

"No," Q's quiet voice said between heavy breaths. "Don't move yet, please. You feel wonderful." 

Not knowing what else to do, Picard turned his head and kissed the slick back beneath him. Q shivered. 

"Why did you say you wouldn't believe me if I said I cared for you?" 

"I believe the word I used was 'love.' If you want to tell me that you like me a little right now I could believe you. Humans do get attached to their sexual partners." 

"Q, I don't care how long you pestered me. You wouldn't have become my sexual partner if I didn't care about you." 

Q chuckled, but the tone was unpleasant. "Strong words from a man I had to carry into bed." 

"I -- I want to look at you properly. I'm going to get off you now." Q lay still, sighing quietly, while Picard eased out and away from him. 

"Q." Picard's voice was hoarse with shock. "What...there's blood. Is this your blood?" 

"It's just Human blood. It doesn't mean anything. The tissue tears a bit. When I'm feeling a bit more capable I'll heal myself up." 

With a growl, Picard grabbed Q's right shoulder and turned him over. The body under his hands felt boneless, and the eyes he glared into seemed to look back without resistance. And yet when they read the concern on Picard's face, they began to sparkle. 

"You do care about me, Mon Capitaine." It was somehow a cross between a question and an exaltation. 

For an answer, Jean-Luc leaned down and kissed him, softly. "Can you heal yourself yet?" 

Q lazily raised a hand and snapped it, producing little noise. Instantly, Picard felt the cleanness of his body and the sheets and the skin under his touch. But Q -- who had done nothing to diminish the soreness inside where Picard had been -- was shivering now, just slightly, and the captain rose from the bed to fetch the thick blanket he had stored in his closet. Returning with it, feeling those dark eyes on him, he wrapped them both up warmly. 

"I'm sorry." 

"For what, Mon Capitaine?" 

"You know for what." 

Q was quiet a moment. "Do you want to make it up to me?" 

Picard's whole body unanimously rejected the idea of going through what Q had. "What do you mean?" 

Carefully, slowly, Q reached over and took Picard's left hand, currently resting on the captain's hip, and brought it over his own chest so that they were snuggled against each other, and seemed to fall instantly asleep. 

  
When the alarm went off, Picard's first sensation was amazement that he had slept. But confusion and self-doubts were no match for the exhaustion in his body and the insistent soothing of Q's breaths. 

"'Morning darling," the entity in his arms said seriously before leaning over for a brief kiss. "Another early meeting?" 

"Yes." He knew that Q knew he was scheduling these meetings so early on purpose. "Q...I'd like to have my bedroom to myself this morning." 

"Well," the dark eyes and sensual mouth pouted, and Picard was amazed to feel warm at the sight. "You know the price." 

Keeping things light with an effort, Picard kissed Q on the forehead and then watched him flash out. Alone, he sat crossed-legged on the bed, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. 

He couldn't believe what he'd done the night before. Q's tears and the blood and the obvious pain had all hurt the man worse than if he had been the one bleeding and bent over. It all made him feel like a monster. 

Because he had enjoyed it: not the pain, not seeing Q hurt, but being inside Q, watching and feeling him writhe in pleasure, watching and feeling him come. 

And the simple sensation, the tight heat around his cock, the soft firmness of Q's skin over muscles that boasted more physical strength than he'd expected, that voice making sounds of pleasure. He was getting aroused just thinking about it. 

But he could never hurt Q like that again. 

But Q was probably going to ask him to, was probably going to insist, and Picard acknowledged ruefully that he was probably not going to be able to resist Q any better tonight than he had last night. 

Did Q really care for him? He seemed troubled by more things than their relationship. Perhaps this was all just a diversion for him, a novel sensation to fill up his life of preurile entertainments. 

But..."Ohhhh, I need this so much. I've wanted you so much...for so long." Q's words had seemed so desperate, so heart-felt. The need in his voice had seemed to control Picard's every motion. All he had wanted in that moment was to comfort that desperate voice, fill that need. 

He wondered if Q had manipulated that. The entity claimed he wasn't forcing Picard, but was he beyond nudging him a bit? 

Well, Picard couldn't help thinking that if Q had been using his powers at all, the first thing he would have done was protect himself from injury. 

Injury Picard had done to him out of sheer ignorance. 

Well, he was not a starship captain for nothing. A plan formed quickly in his mind, and with a nod he got out of bed, showered, dressed, ate, and spent another day being Captain Perfect, forcing his attention on an endless series of details. 

He found he was more comfortable with details than he had been before, back when the big picture overwhelmed him less. He tried not to think of that "other" Picard, the one Q had let him become for those few ghastly hours on the Enterprise as a lieutenant in astrophysics. There was a man of little details who couldn't see the big picture. Was he going to become that after all? What was missing? What had he lost so completely he couldn't know what it was anymore to bring it back? 

And so it was a relief to set his command aside at his lunchbreak, which lasted rather longer than usual between a statis meeting with his chief petty officers and an inspection of the new torpedo launch system. 

Alone, he called up detailed medical files on Human male anatomy and sexuality. As with all Starfleet records, they were helpfully cross-referenced to accommodate a variety of interests and purposes. Systematically, he went through several instruction manuals and a few short, fictional pieces which contained graphic but not lurid descriptions of various positions, acts of stimulation (some of which he could see himself doing and some of which he could not), and procedures designed to aid safety and comfort. 

He found he was rather amazed at the complexity of it, then reminded himself that heterosexual coupling was not without its complexities as well. He had simply begun studying them at a younger age. 

And he was comforted with the knowledge that much of what he had learned about pleasuring women was still in effect here: patience, self-control, consideration, the need to combine affectionate touching with sexual. It was really just a difference in equipment. 

Picard smiled wryly at his own thoughts, then turned off his monitor, got another cup of tea, and realized that all his reading and conceptualizing had done nothing to stimulate his body. Like Q, who claimed that Human sexuality held no intrinsic appeal, homosexuality seemed to hold little intrinsic appeal for the captain. It was only the partner... 

Picard sighed and shoved his thoughts away. It was time for that inspection, and too soon for him to analyze his feelings for Q in detail. Worrying over it too much right now would only make the night harder to get through. It was enough to know that he _was_ feeling for the entity, that he did care for him, that he did want him. 

And so that evening, as he headed for his quarters after a quick sandwich in his ready room, he couldn't help becoming more than half-convinced that Q would not be there. Now that the creature had completely disrupted Picard's world and routine and peace of mind, he would probably be on his way with a laugh at the Human's credulity. Perhaps he had a friend waiting under the table to pop out and mock him after all. Keeping his expression blank, Picard walked through the door to his room. 

"Ooomph!" 

"Oh, I've missed you, Mon Capitaine." 

"Q, I'm really not interested in becoming this familiar with my floor." 

"A good captain loves his ship!" 

Picard's rejoinder was delayed by the lips against his and the skillful tongue in his mouth. It was very nice indeed to enjoy that skill, this warmth and pleasure, without the morass of confusion it had made him feel before. It was liberating to respond freely to that kiss, and he ran his own tongue over and around Q's, then reached into his mouth to brush the roof as his lips pressed urgently back. 

And when they broke the kiss and looked into each other's eyes, Picard saw dark desire there and knew Q could see the same in his own. 

"No forcing the issue tonight?" Q asked, his hoarse tone belying the lightness of the phrase. 

For an answer, Picard reached up a hand around Q's neck and brought him in for another long, sweet kiss, then rolled them both over, kissed him again, and then got off him and stood up. Bending down, he helped Q to his feet, then walked backwards, leading him into the bedroom. Q followed with an almost child-like expression of wonder which did not fade but simply merged into bliss as Picard gently removed his clothing, kneeling down to take off his boots one by one, then his socks, then, standing, Q's jacket and undershirt, his pants and his underwear. He stopped each time to stroke the skin he exposed with faint, warm touches, trailing patterns over his chest, legs, stomach, thighs, buttocks, and now rather prominent erection. 

"Jean-Luc..." the entity breathed, remaining passive with evident effort. 

Smiling faintly, Picard guided Q to the bed and had him sit, then efficiently removed his own uniform and joined him, lying down with him, kissing him and touching him with increasing ardor. 

And now that this was no longer such a mystery, Picard found that it was fun to kiss Q's nipples and feel them harden, to suck on them gently and feel Q arch into it, again and again whispering his name. 

"Q," he began to say back, though it was odd to speak the name -- and an odd name to speak -- with passion. He explored that smooth, soft, firm skin, leaving the groin alone for now but touching his stomach with teasing caresses that made Q squirm and reveal several sensitive spots. Q's neck was more than a little sensitive to his kisses as well, and there was a spot under his collarbone that made the whole body jerk and Q hiss loudly. 

"You're wonderfully responsive," Picard murmured, making Q close his eyes merely at the rumbling baritone. "It's incredibly arousing." 

"Can I touch you back now?" 

"Well," Picard said as he moved up to begin exploring Q's left ear and find three more extremely erogenous zones, "I was rather hoping you'd enjoy having me concentrate on your pleasure, but you should feel free to respond however you wish, of course." 

Q's hands, thrown out by his long arms, clenched and unclenched several times before he suddenly relaxed, breathing deeply with the building enjoyment of each touch. Picard finished charting one ear, kissed a pattern around his neck to the other and began the process again. 

"Did you...take a seminar on this...today, or something?" 

"Just a little light reading." 

Q half-sobbed at that, and Picard pulled back to look at him. Q shook his head, then smiled shyly. "I studied rather a lot about you as well." 

Picard kissed him. "So I gathered." 

"Will you...can I have you inside me now?" 

"Is that what you want?" Lightly, he trailed his fingers over Q's straining erection, feeling the moisture leaking from its tip. 

"Aaaahh. More than...anything." 

Picard smiled tenderly and kissed his shoulder, then let Q roll over on his stomach as a jar of lubricant appeared near the captain's hand. Methodically, still searching out sensitive places, he kissed Q's back in lazy patterns, from the shoulders, along the spine, down to that curve, then, gently, over his smooth ass, stroking now Q's thighs with his fingertips. 

"Oh, Jean-Luc..." 

Pausing in his touches as little as possible, he got the jar and lubricated his hands thoroughly before moving towards the cleft. As he twirled a pattern around that puckered opening, Q began to push himself into the bedclothes and whimper, spreading his legs and arching back. 

"No, here," Picard said, moving up and rolling Q over on his side. Q took a second to understand what Picard wanted, then arched again, his breath coming in jerks as Picard's lubricated fingers worked gently but firmly inside his anus. Finally, the fingers were removed and Q felt the wet tip of the man's erection nudge him. 

"Hurry..." 

"Shhh..." 

Picard reached around with his hand and stroked that long, hard shaft as he eased his way inside. 

"Oh. Oh yes. Oh, that feels so perfect." 

"You must tell me if I'm hurting you." The deep voice was a little ragged now. Being inside Q was even better than he remembered, especially now that he was not being stabbed with guilt. Along with the pressure and heat, it seemed he could _feel_ Q's own pleasure in this, in each motion and sound. Gently, slowly, he began to thrust in and out, going deeper each time until he was fully inside. Then he rested a moment, so closely connected to the entity in his bed, in his life, if only for a while. Q shuddered. "Are you all right? How does this feel?" 

Q's laugh was breathless. "Filled. I'm full of you. All filled up with Jean-Luc Picard." 

"I feel rather taken over by you as well." 

"Do I...feel good?" 

"You're wonderful." He kissed a pattern on Q's raised shoulder. "You feel wonderful." Unable to resist any longer, he began to thrust again, driven almost immediately into a quick rhythm by Q's sighs and shudders and moans. Q put a hand flat on the bed for leverage and pushed back to meet him, and soon Picard wasn't thinking about medical books or safety procedures, but just this incredible feeling of pumping that warmth and firm tension. It was so tight, so erotic, so much pleasure and strength and heat that he had to use all his will not to climax. 

Q couldn't believe this, couldn't believe how good this felt, and yet how painful it had become. 

It was not physically painful. Picard's ministrations had fully prepared him this time, and the captain couldn't have been more gentle. Physically, in fact, there was nothing but pleasure. His body was warm with it, weak and thrilled and laid open to a dance of sensation on each nerve end. 

The pain was in the wanting, and it cut deeply inside. He wanted to scream that he loved. He wanted to hear that he was loved. 

But Picard didn't love him, and never would, and certainly didn't want to be subjected right now to Q's abject adoration. He found he was again struggling with tears, able to keep them back only because he knew that Jean-Luc would misinterpret them and stop that incredible stroking, that wonderful thrusting which filled him so completely and yet left him so aching and empty. 

He tried simply to enjoy what he had, to concentrate on Picard's cock, on the hands which held his body in place, on the ragged breathing of the man who had this time so willingly if somewhat impersonally taken him to bed. He concentrated on the knowledge that Jean-Luc had learned what to do to keep from hurting him again, staying away from his powers as he mentally conjured up the image of Picard studying as though for some academy exam. It was only, of course, because the captain knew that he wasn't going to take no for an answer and that Picard wasn't able to hurt others without causing pain to himself, but it was still something, and Q clutched it frantically as his whole body burned with those controlled, even, powerful thrusts that sparked such an exquisite burn. 

When Q began to sound frantic, again the man reached around and stroked Q with his hand, adding more pressure there, keeping the pumping in synch with his thrusts. 

"Jean-Luc!" Q wailed before coming in that hand, again triggering Picard's climax with his spasming muscles. Deeply he poured himself into Q's body, crying out himself with the strength of feelings which broke and crashed and exploded through him. Picard couldn't remember if anything had ever felt so good, and he thought -- when he could think again -- that he would soon grow addicted to this. 

But he pushed the thought away. He could not rely on Q, could not plan a future which required his trustworthiness. He only knew he had this moment with him. It wasn't, perhaps, all that he wanted, but it was good and he didn't want it to end. 

He pulled out of Q carefully, and was pleased to see no blood this time. 

Oozing lethargy, Q turned to face him. 

"For a Human, you are amazing." 

Picard frowned at Q's obvious pretense of arrogance, his lips curling in a playful sneer while his wild eyes shined a little over-bright. Then Q was kissing him, that long, slow, deep, skillful kiss that made the man wrap arms and legs around the entity and fight to keep from moaning for more. This went on for several long minutes, before, abruptly, they were clean again, and Q left his lips to trail kisses down his neck, across his chest, down his stomach. 

"Q," Picard grunted, not sure he wanted this. In another second, however, he was certain enough. Every touch was perfect, designed to bring him to the absolute limit of pleasure before he broke out and away, sliding into sensations while he cried out and thrust forward into that warm mouth, coming and coming and feeling Q swallow. 

  
What did you mean about lack of choices?" 

"It's something of a long story." 

Amusement filled the room's flickering starlight: "I'm not going anywhere, Q." 

The entity sighed, shifted position slightly to hold Picard more comfortably and began, hesitantly: "You've had some experience with alternate universes." 

"Some." 

"Did you ever wonder about them and the Q?" 

Picard thought a long moment. "You mean, the Q traveling between them?" 

"But that's just it. We don't. Or at least, we're not supposed to." Q sighed again. "Each universe has its own Continuum, and the Q...respect each other's boundaries. You understand the chaos that would be caused if we all started popping into each other's alternate realities, trying to get for ourselves whatever their alternate Q managed to acquire, or to rid themselves of something another Q shed. We are aware of each other, but we don't communicate, and we never, ever, trespass." 

"Are you going to tell me that you did?" 

"You know me so well." The levity didn't work. Q's shame was obvious. 

"And the Continuum punished you?" 

"No. They were going to exile me again, but when I told them...what I found, they only pitied me. It's a horrible thing to be pitied by the Continuum. Even the one you knew as Amanda felt bad for me. Of course, they knew enough to be grateful as well, but...it was really quite humiliating." 

Picard's arms tightened around Q without his awareness. "What happened?" 

"It's so hard to make clear. So hard to...You understand that the universes split along alternative events?" 

"Yes. In one universe I turn right, and in the other left, and that point of divergence defines the different realities. And so for each choice there are infinite possibilities to be realized, and thus infinite alternative universes." 

"Hmm, well, yes and no. There are infinite universes, and even infinite universes inside other universes, but there isn't a universe for every single possibility, every single variation of choice. There are some combinations which do not occur -- an infinite upon infinite number of them, in fact, and these lacking combinations...balance those which do exist. And don't ask me how or what the pattern is, because, since it's not part of any one universe, it's beyond even the Q's knowledge. Yet another reason why we do not cross the boundaries of alternative realities." 

"But you did." 

"Yes." Q sighed once again. "I did. I...couldn't help it. I couldn't stand being so...vital and not knowing why -- or, at least, how." 

"You'll have to explain that one, Q." 

The entity breathed quietly for a time. "I meant what I said, about seeing you on the bridge and knowing what you meant to me, what you would mean. But what happened to me, that moment, it wasn't something that's supposed to happen to the Q. I felt it, and all of my brothers and sisters felt it: a sort of breach, a connection throughout the universal fabric. 

"You see, the universes are in chaos, and yet that chaos is held to certain sorts of patterns...so hard to make it clear. Certain variances are permitted and some are stopped by having constants. The elements, for example, all exist in all the universes, though they sometimes react and interact differently. And in all the universes there is an Earth, though there are not always Humans, and sometimes the Earth is destroyed, and sometimes it lasts, preserved by artificial means and otherwise, until the end of time. 

"These constants are absolutely required. They arrange certain key elements in history, in evolution, in whatever they feel like -- and no, I don't mean I know they're sentient in and of themselves. I don't know where they come from. None of the Q do, and it...bothers us terribly. We don't usually speak of it." 

"So you're saying that you are involved somehow in one of these constants?" 

Q hesitated somewhat longer this time. "We both are. You and I, Picard. In every universe, you and I meet and become important to each other. As lovers or friends, we have interactions shape things, change things, align things." 

"But you said in some universes there aren't even Humans!" Picard barked. 

"That's right, so the Picard in those universes isn't Human. Sometimes he's Klingon or Romulan or Dicsh'kat." A smile played with his lips a moment before resuming a solemn line. "And sometimes I'm not even Q. There's one universe I found where we are both Human, and another, naturally, where we are both Q." 

"One you found?" 

Q sighed without theatrics. "Yes. You see, after I felt that _importance_ of the moment, after the trial, that is, when you had proven your point...I did something the Q don't make a habit of: I projected into the future. I took all that I knew and I figured out what would happen to us. And it made so little sense...I tried to analyze it, understand it, but the Continuum made me work on Riker, and then I had to go through all that exile and Humanity business, and then there were other distractions, and then...finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. 

"When my side won the civil war, and I realized having a child wasn't the answer and told Kath and Q never mind, I was going to come back here and just try to hash things out with you, but then you were grappling with the Borg again and you weren't getting over it this time and I had to leave you alone and I just decided to go...see...what was going on." 

Q's voice had dwindled to a murmur now. 

"You traveled between universes and found out that we are...destined to be together?" Picard tried to lace his voice with suspicion, tried not to feel awe that this might actually be true, tried not to feel the inevitable allure of having such an important, such a destined connection to Q. 

Because he didn't love Q, did he? And Q couldn't love him. 

And as if Picard had spoken aloud, Q sighed. "No. That's just it. The reason that I felt that _connection_ on your bridge is that this universe is an anomaly. They happen, often, actually, though it's rare enough...if you see. 'Rare' when you're dealing with infinity can still mean 'often.'" 

"I think I do see, Q." 

"Well, anomalous universes pop up every now and then, and if they're too unstable they get...hmmm...absorbed, destroyed, what have you." 

"Unstable? From not having the constants?" 

"You are listening." Q smiled and leaned over to brush a kiss across his lips. 

Picard smiled back but didn't let his protesting body respond. "Are you trying to tell me that you and I weren't supposed to end up like this after all?" 

"No. That's just it. We were _supposed_ to, we just weren't _going_ to. I fell in love with you right on schedule, but one thing I learned from my projection was that you were never going to forgive me for the Borg, for introducing them to you, for cursing you forever with their connection to you." 

Q hesitated again, then pushed on: "And so I went looking for answers. I traveled believing...I don't know...that I must have been some sort of Q changeling child, swapped at birth with another Q who was living my life, and loving my Jean-Luc Picard. I tried to find that impostor Q and make him come back here and be the Q I was supposed to be, the one who didn't love you, but could somehow be your friend anyway. Some Q who could interact with you and do the things you and I are supposed to see done here. 

"But eventually I had to realize that I am the imposture Q. I am the one who almost forced his way into a reality that wasn't his own. You'll never love me, Jean-Luc, but you are _my_ Jean-Luc. And so I came back and there you were, about to die in that Romulan tin can, and instead of just saving you from the explosion and taunting you a bit like I was going to," the little smile reappeared momentarily, "I made that bargain with you. I went to the Continuum then -- didn't you wonder where I was? You didn't ask. And they decided there was no point in punishing me, especially since I told them I'd be with you from now on. 

"And now I'm trying my best to live by our agreement. I want you to know, I'll always try my best with you. It means more than you can realize to me that we have important things to do together, things of consequence, though I'm not sure what they are. They change, of course. The events aren't constant, only us." 

"So by being together we'll save the universe from being so anomalous it gets destroyed?" 

"Put simply." 

"Are you serious, Q?" 

"Of course I am. I told you about lack of choices." Q rolled over to rest on his elbows then. "Enough, please, for tonight, Jean-Luc." He kissed Picard then, deeply, searching for the response the man could not deny him. Picard wanted to object, wanted to ask a hundred questions, but it was too hard to insist with Q's kisses on his lips. 

And then Q moved down slowly into his now familiar pattern, bringing Picard to complete bliss with just his mouth and hands, until he came and then slid without resistance into darkness, comforted by that warm body that now began those steady breaths. There was always tomorrow night. 

  
Resistance is futile, Number One." 

They had taken all he had, and given him power beyond his desires. 

He knew one purpose. It filled him while it directed and used him. He saw the extensions of himself: black hardware that was now "him" as much as the flesh he was born with. 

Silently, unheard, he was screaming. 

And someone was kissing his ass. 

  
"Q." The voice was angry and hard. 

The entity stopped half-way through a small pattern of kisses. This hadn't been a good idea. "Bad dreams?" 

"What do you know about it?" 

"Only that you were restless." Q's body heat lessened and Picard heard the sheets rustle as his bed partner moved back. "I wanted to make you feel better." 

Rage battled within him, the need to speak growing. He held it back automatically, ruthlessly, wanting, _needing_ Q to say something wrong. 

With a quiet sigh, Q caressed his hip. "Was your dream about us?" 

"I was Locutus again." 

Q said nothing, and Picard turned around and sat up to look at him in the starlit room. For a time neither of them spoke. 

"I am always Locutus. In every nightmare. I'm there again, taken over, invaded, raped and stripped and lost to myself. I see the Enterprise getting ready to ram the cube, the Starfleet ships torn apart by the fire that I directed. The assimilation of Earth seems to me inevitable and correct. 

"And I never dream the good part, being rescued, getting back on the ship, stopping them. It's always being assimilated, feeling that I would never be free, and blaming..." 

"Blaming me for it?" Q shrugged across the gap in the bed. "You should. The Borg were headed Earth's way already, Jean-Luc, but they wouldn't have made you Locutus without my interference." 

"You told me once that I wasn't that important. Did you mean that it didn't matter, it didn't make a difference that --" 

"Don't hold what I said at Starbase Earhart up to the light, Jean-Luc. Locutus and the Enterprise saved the Earth. Don't think for a moment that's not true. I can't pretend that's why I introduced you to them, but --" 

"But you knew they were coming." 

Q looked at him oddly, closed off. "Yes." 

Picard tried to figure out how he felt about that, and couldn't. Ever since Locutus he'd had this small numb place inside, and since the Borg's second attack that place had grown. In fact, he hadn't felt much at all since returning to the 24th century. There had been some pleasure in reporting to Starfleet Command. Or at least, some satisfaction. Then...nothing. Just the details of getting on with his life. 

But it was the Borg who had done that to him, not Q. It was a price Picard had paid to help save his homeworld, but it hadn't been Q's price. 

Q's price for saving his ship had been his body...or at least, the opportunity to...what could he call what they had been doing? It somehow wasn't just sex even though it certainly wasn't love. It was too emotional for the first and too... 

_Emotional._ The word stuck in Picard's mind. He'd been feeling emotions these past few days, more than in all the long weeks since the Borg, and it was because of this creature in his bed. Not all of the feelings had been welcome or pleasant, but they were strong and certain, the emotions of a living Human being. 

Q watched the man's eyes change without understanding what it meant. It was something he was getting used to, now that he was keeping away from Picard's mind. But he hoped it meant he had an opportunity. 

"Tell me what you want, Jean-Luc." Q watched the man try to speak, watched the captain keep himself from speaking. "I'll give you anything you want. And I can, too." Q's smile went unanswered, but he thought perhaps he recognized the tension in the man's body after all. It surprised him, offered him something, the way Picard always managed to do. Slowly, gently, Q reached over and ran his fingers lightly over the man's face. Picard did not pull away. 

In one motion, Q slid over to him and brought his left arm around his shoulders, pressing him in close without entrapping him. Ducking his head, he lowered his lips to his neck and sucked firmly at just the right spot, smiling to himself when Picard actually moaned aloud. 

And before the noise had ended it was forming a word: "Yes." 

_I can do this for him,_ Q thought, running his fingers over Picard's shoulders, down his back, around his sides, as he kissed and nibbled along his neck and then along the curve of his jaw. He slid the silk back from his shoulders, admiring the man's arms, then gently pressed him back against the bed, covering him with his own now naked form. 

"You're so small," Q whispered as he continued to touch Picard with his hands and lips. "So compact. So enclosed by this mortal shell. It's not how I think of you at all. You're power and light to me, and yet I can hold you between my hands." The wonder in Q's voice was growing as he raised up his head to look down at the body beneath him. Picard's eyes glittered as he lay still, soaking in deep breaths and letting them out with caution. 

"I can't believe I can touch you like this. I can't believe you're so...accessible. This Human body of yours, I can make you feel so good through it, when you let me." He paused to savor the shiver under his hands. "This skin of yours, amazing. I don't like touching my own skin much. It makes me feel pointless, but I can't touch yours enough." 

Demonstrating both his words and the feelings behind them, Q was kissing and stroking patterns all over the muscled chest which rose and fell with those deep, shuddering breaths. His fingertips and lips seemed to be competing with each other to see which could touch him most gently, surging heat through Picard's body as they traced his nerves with quickfire, stimulating him into groans. Never had someone brought him so quickly and deeply into pleasure. Dimly, he recalled Q's wish to have him lose the desire for another in his bed, and he was beginning to believe it would happen. Q's hands had reached his hips now, trailing that maddening touch. He was nibbling lightly down along Picard's lower stomach, his chin brushing his pubic hair, and Picard felt his body strain for the touch. 

And then Q made to turn him over. 

Picard's eyes flew open and his body tensed. He opened his mouth to say no. 

"Shh," Q soothed, not stopping the gentle touches. "Can't you trust me even a little? I'm not going to fuck you. I won't ever do that until you ask me to." 

"What if..." Picard winced at his own selfishness, but this, of all times, was a time to be honest. "What if I never ask?" 

"Never is a long time." 

"Q..." 

"I said I won't put myself inside you until you ask for it, Jean-Luc. Now trust me and turn over. I promise you're going to like it." 

_Going to like what?_ Picard wondered suspiciously as he slowly complied. Once again he was awash in disbelief that this was happening. Q, the last person he could trust, was in his bed, naked, as naked as he was, touching him, dropping feather-light kisses along his buttocks, gently spreading his legs and moving towards his center. Picard tried to relax, tried to remind himself that he could rely on Q not to ruin everything the entity had worked so hard to establish at this point. If he wanted to deceive him or force him, he could have -- 

"Oh!" Oh, God. Q was kissing him _there._ He'd read about this (and wrinkled his nose a bit), but it was unlike anything he -- 

"Oh!" Oh, this was incredible, and though he couldn't relax completely to enjoy it the overwhelmingly sensual, sexual nature of this was unbelievable. He had no idea he was so sensitive there, not to this, not like this. Q had known. The realization disturbed him even as his cock pressed painfully into the bedclothes. 

"Relax," Q's voice urged him as he paused a moment, running hands over his legs and then up over his back before tracing patterns on his buttocks. "Please trust me just this much. Relax." 

_I can't._ He wanted to, but... "How can this be any good for you?" His words were muffled by the pillow, and unsteady from the continued touches from Q's hands. Yet as excited as he was he felt filled with dread. "How can you get anything from doing...that?" 

"You're going to come with my tongue inside you." He paused and shivered as Picard groaned, his hips grinding down harder on the bed. "Don't you realize what you look like to me?" 

"An aging man on his stomach. Borg left-overs with an erection." 

Q listened to the anguish in those words and felt as desperate as when he'd first realized Picard would never love him. More desperate, even. Only Picard could be here with Q like this and still seem surrounded by guards and buried under shields. 

"You're Jean-Luc Picard," Q whispered. "You're the most incredible creation I've found in five billion years of searching, and if you will only say yes I will belong to you. We could even belong to each other." 

"Nothing about how I'll destroy the universe if I don't say yes?" 

"I didn't tell you about my misdeeds to blackmail you." 

Picard rolled over onto his back at that, clearly revealing, to Q's concern, that his erection had lost some of its strength. "You were blackmailing me with my ship!" 

"But..." Q looked away, and it seemed to Picard that he could _feel_ how difficult to was for him to continue. He was reminded suddenly of a difficult journey across Kes-Prytt with Beverly at his side. "I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have let you die or the Enterprise be destroyed. Did you really think I would?" 

The man was amazed at Q's tone, the hurt there so much in evidence. 

Because of that tone, he forced himself to answer. "No. I didn't. It was that...I couldn't say no. I couldn't give you that over me, allow you to say to me that I hadn't been willing to save them, even though I didn't think you would let us die." 

Q nodded solemnly. "I thought as much." He reached out to trail a gentle touch along Picard's almost forgotten erection, and the man shuddered. He wanted release, but he didn't want to roll over again. 

Q must have sensed this, for soon he was moving his head down. Even though Picard's body yearned for the pleasure he knew Q could give him, he grated out, "No, Q." 

The dark eyes looked at him, anxiety clear. 

"No, this isn't fair to you." 

Q laughed, and the sound was harsh enough actually to hurt Picard's ears. 

"You're telling me not to touch you to be fair to _me?_ " 

For an answer, Picard sat up and pushed Q back on the bed, trying to be as gentle as Q had been, and then sat there a moment, just looking at Q lying there. Q kept still with effort, able to endure this only because Picard smiled faintly at him. Finally, the man took Q's right hand in his left and carefully placed it on the entity's chest, next to his right. Slowly, he stroked Q's chest both with his hand and with Q's own. 

"How can you dislike touching yourself? You feel quite lovely." Q groaned. "Firm muscles and soft skin, so warm and responsive. Can't you feel it?" 

Q managed to get out, "A rock would...respond to you." 

Picard smiled more deeply this time, holding Q's gaze as he bent down to brush his lips over his chest, before settling onto his left nipple and closing his eyes as he began to suck gently. 

Q's whimpers had him hard as ever, he noticed. With his fingertips, he played with the other nipple a while, then switched over, his heart thudding a bit -- but his erection not diminishing -- at the thought of what he was going to try to do. Eventually, he kissed a line down from Q's chest over his stomach, increasing Q's groans. But once he was actually repositioning himself on the bed, Q seemed to snap out of it. 

"You don't have to do that." 

"Shhhh." Picard let his breath stir the dark hair around the flushed and pulsing erection, smelling Q strongly now as he moved down a bit farther and kissed the wet tip. Q gasped and jerked, and Picard suddenly felt his lack of confidence dissipate. There was really little question that Q wouldn't at least appreciate the thought. 

He covered the velvet head in kisses, then opened wide, instructing himself to keep his lips over his teeth as he used his tongue as a guide. The taste was strong, salty and yet a little bitter-sweet. It was actually sort of delicious, and listening to Q moan and gasp as he writhed about was downright intoxicating. This was nothing like stroking Q with his hand, nothing like being inside Q, nothing like going down on women. He felt he _controlled_ Q this way, and the trust that the entity was showing him would have overwhelmed him, if he couldn't remind himself that he had let Q do this to him more than once. 

And thinking about just how good this felt when Q did it to him spurred Picard on to greater efforts. He cupped Q's testicles and tried to work his tongue around the warm, pulsing rod. He was beginning to get more comfortable, though his jaw was aching just a bit and he found it hard not to gag. Fortunately, Q seemed to like everything he did, so he could stop sucking periodically to lick along the sides and kiss the tip again and again. 

Q was trying hard to hold himself still. He couldn't thrust into that warm mouth, couldn't grab the man's head to push him down. But more than that, he couldn't buck or kick, or do anything that might make Picard stop. He'd given up on the idea that Picard would ever do this, and now the pleasure was overwhelming. There was power in this, selfishness, joy, even. Q knew this had to be difficult for Picard. The thought that he was doing this _to_ Q like this. He couldn't stand it. 

"Oh!" Q warned suddenly, and Picard could feel how tight his sac was. He had a decision to make. 

He pushed himself down as far as he could manage and sucked hard. 

"Jean-Luc! Love!" 

The hot cum in his mouth was almost too much, and he lost more than he swallowed, both distracted and aroused by the simple idea of what he was doing. Q was coming in his mouth, and he grew painfully hard as the reality sunk in. He waited until Q was completely spent and limp, then released him and looked at Q, covered in sweat and gasping, eyes closed, arms flung out. The vulnerability shook him. 

His aural memory kicked in. Did Q love him? Could Q love anyone besides himself? 

Without opening his eyes, Q dragged his legs back, pressing the tops of his thighs against his chest as a jar flashed into existence near Picard's hand. 

What did this mean to him, anyway? To either of them? Why was he moving now so quickly, spreading lubricant over his erection even as the residue of Q's cum felt thick in his mouth? Was this just simple lust, or did he love Q? Could he love anyone when some part of him was still connected to the Borg? 

And Q was more powerful than the Borg, could hurt him far worse. Or worse yet, could protect Picard until the man couldn't stand on his own anymore. He was already not the captain he had been... 

Oh, but how could he think of that when he was pushing himself inside Q, watching those still-closed eyes roll with the pleasure expressed in a whimpering moan? 

"Never have this enough," Q said when he had eased in deep. 

"Open your eyes." 

It took a moment, but then the dark brown gaze was meeting his own. Picard moved a lubricated hand to Q's penis and began to stroke. Groaning again, Q moved with him, and grew hard again as Picard thrust and stroked, keeping his eyes locked onto Q's dark gaze, trying to convey something through his eyes he couldn't even think in his own mind. 

And eventually his own gaze dropped. It didn't matter, he thought. This felt so good, and it was so much more than he'd had in so long. Perhaps, though, he could say that? 

"This feels so good," he tried, other words pushing up from him and making the simple phrase awkward. "You feel good inside and out." 

Q groaned, and when Picard flicked his eyes towards Q's face, he saw that the dark eyes had closed once more. The face seemed contorted almost by pain 

"How do I feel inside you?" the man urged, needing to be closer and yet afraid of it. "You must tell me how this feels." 

"I...you might not like it." 

Picard stopped thrusting immediately. "Am I hurting you?" Q made a noise of protest, shuddering, and Picard looked down to where they were joined, feeling himself twitch inside Q's tight, warm body. 

"No. It's just...I love the way you feel. I love _you._ I need to say it. I can't help it." 

"You may say whatever you like," Picard said, wincing at his own tepid words. Why couldn't he say what he was feeling? Why couldn't he _feel_ what he was feeling? "Whatever you....like." He started up his thrusts again at the words, and Q shuddered and began gripping the comforter in rhythm with the man's movements. 

"I do...love you...always will...love you...can't...help it." 

Picard thought only of bringing Q pleasure now, his own orgasm ready to crash over him the second he allowed it. Q's erection was hot and hard and leaking and almost there. Almost there. Almost -- 

"I LOVE YOU!" Q screamed, coming inside Picard's hand and clenching his ass around the urgent cock inside it and dragging Picard with him over the edge. Picard felt as though he were pouring out more than he could spend, more than he could spare, into Q's body, and everything got dim and fuzzy for a long, long moment. When he became fully aware again, he found he and Q were wrapped in each other's arms, their slick skin sliding against the other with each shivering gasp. 

After a few minutes of this, Picard reached for the blankets and Q snapped them both clean. Picard lost the taste of Q's cum, but couldn't bring himself to protest. It was enough to be here like this. It was more than enough. Frighteningly so. 

  
"Jean-Luc! Wake up!" 

Picard reluctantly dragged himself from profound sleep and looked up to see Q staring at him in alarm. 

"What is it?" 

"We have to go. I've been so stupid." 

Picard rubbed the sleep from his eyes and frowned. "Go?" 

Whatever urgent words had been poised on Q's lips, they died without a struggle as the entity began to stare into Picard's face with a look of wonder. 

"What?" the man grunted. 

Q's eyes glittered like a child's at Christmas, and Picard became abruptly aware of their positions, Q sitting up but leaning over him, his legs straddling Jean-Luc's left leg, his hands resting on either side of him. But Q was still only looking into the man's face, even as his left hand rose from the bed and softly, smoothly ran over the side and then the top of Jean-Luc's head. 

"You -- you look so...you're so beautiful." 

"Really, Q!" Picard protested, though it came out much weaker than he'd intended, almost as if it were a question. 

"Really," Q murmured back dreamily. 

"I thought we had to leave. I thought something was urgent." 

"It is," Q agreed absently, returning his hand to the bed and moving with a sort of unconscious glide. His erection slid against Picard's thigh and ended up thrusting slightly against his groin, right next to Picard's cock. At the impact, Q's eyes rolled slightly, and he thrust gently once again. "I just...can I just..." He continued thrusting, and it was fairly obvious what he was imagining he was doing. Picard wanted to protest, but found himself growing warm. The expression on Q's face was incredible. He looked drugged or hypnotized, moving now with some force into that space in his groin. "We need to hurry..." Q droned softly. "...but I just...do you mind...just this...just let me...oh, so good..." 

Q was sweating and shaking, his entire consciousness given over to that simple rhythm, and Picard felt hypnotized himself, watching it. Q's eyes had focused on his chest, as though he were trying to see his whole body at once, and with each impact of their bodies his gaze seemed to grow more intense, until there was the tell-tale shine of tears in his eyes and saliva on his lips from open-mouthed panting. 

It was incredible to be desired this much; it made Jean-Luc's chest ache, to say nothing of his cock, and, suddenly, he wanted to tell Q it was all right to fuck him. 

His own thoughts astonished him, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't help wondering what it would be like to see Q's face if he said it. The inequality of their positions had oppressed them since this began. Each time Q had come, he'd come hard, but along with the intensity of the sex there had been such a scarcity of joy. Watching as Q strained towards release, his face almost beatific and his mind obviously occupied with the fantasy of being inside him, Picard opened his mouth...only to find that no words came out. 

Q evidently thought he was trying to protest, and bit his lip before thrusting harder and faster. "Almost...just a little...almost...so beautiful...Jean-Luc...almost..." 

Roughly, feeling like the world's most selfish jerk, Picard grabbed Q's buttocks and pulled him closer, aiding that thrusting. Q's face lit with a surge of pleasure which lasted through two more thrusts, and then he came, hard, desperately, against Picard's body, splashing hot cum between them, and at the feel of it Picard almost came himself. Only his anger at himself held him back. Q groaned loudly, keeping himself from falling over Picard by locking his arms at the elbows, his head hanging forward loosely as he gasped through the end of it. 

Picard waited as long as he could, then, "Q?" 

"I'm sorry." His dark head rose up, and Picard saw a look of embarrassment on Q's eloquent features. Q moved back and away from him, steadied himself with a breath, and reached for the man's erection. 

"No," Picard said, much more sharply than he'd intended. Q looked stung. Picard sat up, trying to rid himself of that hardness he didn't deserve. "I mean, it's not necessary. You said something was urgent." 

Q forced the hurt look from his face, firmed his shoulders, nodded. "Yes. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes. We need to leave. I did more damage than I thought." 

"When? To what?" 

Q seemed to wince at each clipped word, and his eyes were bright and looking away from Picard as he explained, "Traveling through the universes. I thought I had compensated for the disturbances, but there's a weakness in the fabric. I should have realized. We'll need to seal it and keep watch for more. I've gotten us some help, but they're not going to be happy about it." Q raised his hand. 

"Wait!" 

Q froze, his eyes looking at Picard while his face still pointed away. 

" _Please,_ Q. Look at me." 

The entity turned and waited. 

"I'm sorry, Q. It's just that...you...overwhelm me at times." 

Q winced again. "I'm sorry, Mon --" 

The rest was lost in the kiss Picard pressed to his lips, his hand around the back of Q's neck, holding him in close and tight. Q kissed back automatically at first, then almost resisted, confused, and at the feel of that Picard almost let him go. Then Q pressed forward, and the captain matched him, opening his mouth to explore Q's, deeply, thoroughly. Q touched him tentatively with his hands, running his fingers over his back, then caressing his hips, and Picard moaned slightly. He didn't deserve the arousal pumping through his body, but he still felt it. In fact, he wasn't feeling much else. 

When Picard didn't protest his first touches, Q grew more bold, and finally reached again for the man's hard cock, smiling into his mouth as he felt that slick heat. 

Jean-Luc broke the kiss long enough to gasp, "Quickly," then plundered Q's mouth again while the entity stroked him hard. In a moment, he was screaming down Q's throat while heat rushed all through him and then out into Q's hand. Q held him, then whispered: 

"We really have to go." 

Still needing to be held, Picard nodded. Only as they were flashing out did it occur to him that he had never demanded to know where. 

  
Captain Kathryn Janeway kept her temper with difficulty, trying not to shout at her crew, trying to say calmly and even soothingly that she wasn't going to accept that they had been pulled back 20,000 light years from home, once again where they had been two years ago, once again on the other side of Borg space, once again completely at the mercy of some whim of the universe. But she couldn't find the words. 

"Recheck our position," she told Ensign Kim instead. 

"I'm sorry, Kathy, but we need a little help here." 

Her eyes going wide -- and yet so many of her questions answered -- at the sound of that voice, the captain of the Voyager turned sharply. But the invective on her lips died at what she saw. 

"Captain Picard?" she asked instead. 

The man she was staring at looked momentarily disconcerted, standing there in his captain's uniform as though Q had just snatched him from his own bridge. He otherwise looked exactly as she remembered him from the conference on Hal-on IV, if perhaps a bit paler. She could hardly blame him. And yet, perhaps there was something else as well. 

"Captain Janeway," he responded, his voice as deep and commanding as ever, even as his hands tugged his uniform down and he looked around her bridge. "Forgive the intrusion." 

She blinked, meeting Chakotay's eyes for a second and seeing her surprise reflected there. Then she looked Picard in the eyes and saw his expression steady into concern and determination. There was more going on here than one of Q's jokes. 

"Yes, I am sorry, Kath," Q said, not sounding it, "but we needed someone we knew could work with tools, and you were nearby. You should take it as a compliment." 

"Nearby?" Chakotay demanded. 

"Haven't you looked out the window, Chuckles?" 

Janeway watched Picard frown, noticing there was something strange in it: a touch of...embarrassment? 

"You've taken us 20,000 light years backwards!" the first officer exploded. 

Q talked directly to Janeway: "Well, it's not as if I have any intention of leaving you here." 

"Captain," Picard said quietly. "There is a legitimate danger, if we might discuss it?" 

Janeway looked at him, still trying to figure out what seemed off about him. She nodded, and moved towards her ready room, noting that Chakotay was moving with some belligerence as well. 

"You have the bridge, Tuvok," she ordered. 

"Aye, Captain." 

Picard and Q followed quietly, and that's when Janeway pegged it: Picard was quieter, his voice, his posture, the simple aura the man projected, while still impressive, was less than she remembered. She was tempted to chalk it up to less awe and intimidation on her part, but could see that he seemed distantly stunned. And as they settled into stances, facing each other in the ready room, she saw that he was also slightly restless, that incredible discipline which had so impressed her at their last meeting tempered now by eyes that seemed to wander around him, double- and triple-checking everything as though it might suddenly leap at him, and by hands that sometimes moved without purpose. She wondered sourly what had been done to him. 

Her accusing eyes turned to Q. "Does this have anything to do with the unrest you mentioned in the Continuum?" 

Q frowned at her, and she noticed abruptly that he was different as well. All hint of that oozing sexual interest in her was gone. No burlesque innuendo, no suggestive leering: she found it more than a minor relief. At the same time it disturbed her; she was more than ever aware of the seriousness of the threat Q's presence posed. Since he no longer seemed such a clown, he seemed all the more a source of destruction. 

"No," Q said flatly. "It's just a little maintenance problem. Not something for you to philosophize or hit the self-destruct button over." 

Her eyes narrowed. "Is that your way of saying you're not going to let us remember this when you're done taking our help?" 

Q shrugged. "You can remember it, I should think. I'm certainly not going to erase Jean-Luc's memory, though that's partly because he can be trusted not to blab." 

Picard took a slight breath and moved his head back, grabbing her attention, and suddenly he seemed exactly as she remembered right down to the last atom. "I hope you will understand that Q is right, Captain. I cannot go to Starfleet Command and inform them of my visit to your ship." 

"May we ask why?" Chakotay wanted to know, his anger suppressed for both captains' sakes. 

But Janeway put up a hand, looking at her first officer to soften the gesture. "This isn't about the Continuum at all, is it, Q?" She looked with quite a different expression at their unexpected visitor. "This is just about you, something you did." She crossed her arms. "Just how much trouble will you get in if they find out you're here without authorization?" 

Q laughed, and unlike before she felt genuine scorn in it. "Forgive me, Kath, but you have no idea what it means to be Q or how the Continuum conducts its business." 

"Q," Picard said warningly, and both Voyager officers watched as Q schooled his expression and stood there quietly. 

"Captain Janeway," Picard continued, "this is about something Q caused, but that cause is not as important right now as seeing that no further damage to space in this section is done. That's why you're here. If I've been told correctly, you told Q you didn't want him to solve your problems, and any sort of significant exchange of information between us regarding our disparate quadrants would inevitably alter your journey home. As long as we exercise caution, there's no reason why memories must be erased, "he looked at Q, "or any further disruption need be caused." 

"Exactly what sort of disruption are we talking about here?" Chakotay asked. 

"Q caused a rent in the fabric of space passing between universes. I saw -- Q showed me the extent of the damage. He's repaired it, of course, but the problem is that the disrepair is a part of his own consciousness. There's a chance he can't _see_ what other damage he's done. But your ship's sensors should be able to detect any other weakness in the fabric...with a little adjusting." 

Picard looked at the captain and commander still eyeing his companion, and turned to asked quietly, "Q, may I speak with Captain Janeway alone for a moment?" 

A dozen expressions crossed so quickly over the entity's face that Janeway couldn't decipher a single one. "Of course," he said, and then snapped his fingers, removing both himself and Chakotay from the ready room. 

Picard turned to her with a somewhat rueful smile. "He's rude to my first officer as well. It seems to be part of his idiom." 

"Someone told me you're a tea drinker," Janeway said, smiling and moving towards her desk, trying to gather scattered thoughts. 

Picard smiled back and nodded, moving himself towards the chair before her desk. She appreciated his understanding of her need to position them. "I've heard you're a coffee drinker." 

Janeway was surprised, and let her expression show it as she stood before the replicator. 

Picard chuckled. "Admiral Vegras told me you were the one to watch five years ago at the Teralin Seminar. When knowledge of your experience with the Caretaker reaches Starfleet officially, I'm sure he's going to be impossibly smug." 

"Q told you about that?" Picard nodded. "What flavor of tea would you like?" 

"Earl Grey, if you have it." 

Janeway nodded back and crossed to her desk with two steaming cups in her hands. When she passed one to Picard, he took it with an absent smile, and she realized that in addition to looking restless, he simply seemed distracted. 

"You could just order me to help you and Q," Janeway noted quietly. "But I take it you'd rather have me volunteer to help." 

Picard took a sip of tea and leaned back as she sat down behind her desk. It occurred to her that she should have sat on the sofa instead. _I suppose I'm intimidated,_ she thought wryly. _Picard and Q together. Quite the one-two punch._

"Of course," he said. "I can only imagine what sort of autonomy you've needed to create out here in order to keep your people together so far from Starfleet Command. Despite appearances and Q's...presentation, we're really not here to turn your mission up-side down." 

"You know, he's offered before to send us all the way home...bribed me, actually, with it. But...that was with the Continuum's okay, the first time, anyway." Janeway knew she looked uncomfortable. 

Picard seemed to be holding off a smile, then caught himself. "Q did tell me something of his experience with you the last time he was here," he said quietly. Q's narrative had been somewhat thin, but delivered with such discomfort he knew it had been genuine. 

Repairing the damage to space had been more than a little surreal. Q had snapped them from Picard's bedroom to a large workshop. It had been raining outside the shop, and the walls were leaking. Q rushed to the wall and began hammering boards over it. Eventually, he'd settled into a pace, and Picard had helped him (or so Q said) by handing him boards and nails and sometimes a new hammer when the old one broke. He'd been aware that the world around him bore the responsibility of representation; everything had seemed a little heavier, a little darker, a little louder than it should have. 

And while they had worked, they had talked about many things, except about their...relationship. Picard had tried to find some way to tell Q he was sorry for that morning. But then, listening to Q casually talk about his dealings with Voyager and her crew, about helping Quinn to kill himself and then leading a civil war in the Continuum, not to mention the whole story about the child he'd tried to force on her...well, not force, exactly...but nevertheless...listening to Q had reminded Picard of all the reasons why it was a very bad idea to trust him, to get involved with him, to love him... 

_No,_ Picard thought, trying to concentrate on something else. He couldn't even think about loving Q. He couldn't risk it. He was about to fall apart as it was. 

Janeway was thinking about those bizarre days over a year ago now. Q had shown up with the intention of getting her to agree to be the mother to his child, but his heart had never been in it. When Miss Q had shown up, they'd discussed having a child together instead, but neither of the entities had really been interested. It had all been so odd, so pointless, and when Q had simply left without further trouble, she'd somehow felt let down. In fact, she'd thought, very privately indeed, that she'd been cheated. When Q showed up on the Enterprise, important things tended to happen, like meeting the Borg or saving Humanity. She'd basically hosted some sort of mid-life crisis. 

But no, there had been more to her feelings than that. She liked Q, a little. She couldn't help it. He'd been so surprising about Quinn, and despite his manner and his threats, he'd occasionally shown something in himself that she'd responded to. That day they sat on her couch, drinking coffee while he tried to give her the puppy and talking about families and commitments, she'd thought he was about to tell her something important about himself, something that embarrassed or at least disconcerted him. Then Miss Q had shown up, and he'd put his mask back on tight. The next day, when he'd simply said goodbye and apologized (off-handedly, yes, but it had still been an actual apology) for bothering her, she'd actually worried about him. 

And now, here Q was, grabbing her ship and commandeering her crew...and showing some care in doing it. That wasn't what she expected, either. But doubtlessly, she thought, it was Picard's influence. 

Both captains suddenly realized they'd been staring at each other over their drinks. Picard set his down and Janeway did the same, leaning forward as she asked: 

"What is it, exactly, that Q needed our help with?" 

"We'll need constant scans of the area. Any disruption in the time/space continuum should be brought immediately to Q's attention." 

"How long will we need to run the scans?" 

"For several days, but, as Q said, time won't have changed when this is over. We're currently inside a temporal anomaly, since Q can't allow time to progress forward until he's certain that the damage is permanently repaired." 

Janeway crossed her arms. "You sound as though he's earned your trust, Captain." 

Picard frowned, and Janeway felt intimidation creeping up at her again. "I do not trust Q," he said heavily. "But I have seen enough evidence to convince me that about this he's serious. I am certain that the damage he's trying to prevent is severe, and the mission worthwhile. However, if you don't wish to participate, I will do what I can to see that Q recruits some other help." 

Janeway held up a hand. "No, no. If it's worthwhile we'll be happy to help, even if it would have been nice to be asked first." 

The slightest of smiles answered her, along with: "Not much hope of that with Q, I'm afraid." 

Suddenly aware that this was a man she could like as well as respect, Janeway allowed her own wry grin to answer. "No, not much hope." She paused a moment. "If you'll allow me to say so, Captain, you look tired. Space on Voyager is somewhat limited, but we still do have guest quarters available." 

Picard sighed and looked even tireder still. "The last few days have been somewhat of a strain," he admitted. 

Janeway made a wry face to match the return of her grin. "You've been dealing with Q for _days?_ " 

Picard chuckled, then shook his head with a sudden sorrow. "No, it wasn't Q only. I'm afraid...it's been something of a trying couple of years at home." 

Janeway appreciated the captain's trust in her in telling her that, and did nothing to indicate that he should elaborate. Then an unpleasant thought occurred to her. 

"What is it?" 

She hesitated, but it knew it would be better to tell him now. "A member of my crew, you'll see her while you're here, she's an ex-Borg." Picard's eyebrows shot up. "Seven of Nine, Human, assimilated when she was a child. She was a Borg for twenty years." 

"And she wanted to become Human again?" he asked doubtfully. 

"No, not at first, though she is adjusting better than I had feared. We had to remove her from the Collective to escape being assimilated ourselves, then...things happened and returning her was no longer an option." 

Picard nodded, keeping himself now from asking further questions. The Borg were here, of course, in this quadrant. It only made sense that Janeway and her crew had had dealings with them. And if he were to be helpful here he couldn't start screaming and ordering the shields thrown up. If he were to be any use at all, he simply had to acknowledge their presence and go on. 

He found himself wishing with unaccustomed fierceness that he could have a talk with Deanna Troi. 

_And what, tell her all about the wild sex you've been having with Q? That would be pleasant, I'm sure._

"When you get back to Earth," Picard said with quiet sincerity, "I hope the Enterprise will be close enough to greet you there." 

Janeway curled one side of her lip up as she slowly shook her head. "I'd forgotten how nice it is to address a fellow captain every now and then, Captain." 

"Please, call me Jean-Luc." 

"And I'm Kathryn." She nodded firmly. "I'll get the scanning going immediately. With our new astrometrics lab, we should spot any trouble quickly, but I'm not sure how to contact Q, and I don't want him hovering over my crew." 

"He'll be with me," Picard said, then looked slightly closed off. "Or, if not, I will be able to contact him." 

Janeway didn't comment on the addendum, simply saying as she stood, "Then let me get you those quarters. In the morning, you can meet our cook, Neelix, a Delta Quadrant resident." 

"I'll look forward to it," he promised, standing as well. 

"Ah, but you don't know that he cooks Delta Quadrant food." She laughed. "Actually, we've all gotten to enjoy his cooking, but I'm not sure what it will be like for someone fresh from home." 

Picard made no move towards the door she was unconsciously indicating. "You say that so wistfully, Kathryn. If it means anything to you, Q and I are both certain you will find a way to get your crew back to Earth." 

And it was easy somehow. Perhaps because his eyes were so full of a private pain of their own, or because his voice was so soothing, or simply because he was Jean-Luc Picard, but Janeway revealed in an instant something concealed for years: "In my darker moments, sometimes I wonder. I stranded them out here. I have to get them home. But sometimes...home seems so very far away." 

"It's closer than you think," Picard said. "It always is." 

Janeway smiled, somehow finding the comment truly comforting. Perhaps it was simply that she knew he meant it. She wondered if she might find some way to help him with whatever demon was riding him, and promised herself she would do what she could to try. 

They walked to the doors now, both looking with some curiosity to the bridge as they passed through. Chakotay and the rest of the bridge crew were sitting stiffly at their stations, and Q was leaning quite casually against the rear bulkhead, hovering on the edge of an overt yawn. 

Picard knew that his manner was not feigned. Q was tired and had a right to be. 

"Captain?" Chakotay said, rising from his chair. 

"We'll need to start scanning the area for any sign of anomalies and continue scanning for a few days." She looked at Tuvok. "Tell Seven you and I are on our way to astrometrics." She looked back at Chakotay. "Meanwhile, see what you can find the captain in the way of quarters, then you get to sleep yourself. I want one or the other of us on duty at all times while this is going on." 

"Yes, Captain." He looked at Picard, and noticed just as Janeway had that he looked tired. He was aware that it was foolish, but he felt some surprise at such a...typical thing in the man. He knew he and everyone around him felt some old-fashioned awe at the man's appearance on the Voyager. Their own captain had become someone so approachable to all of them, a member, if the head, of the family. Meeting Jean-Luc Picard was somewhat like meeting Starfleet Command, the President, and an official representative of the Alpha Quadrant all rolled into one. 

And more than that. Here was simply a man who not long ago had been where they all so very much wanted to be. Chakotay wondered if there would be crewmembers who wouldn't simply drop to their knees in front of him and beg the captain to get them home. But as he moved towards the turbo-lift, it occurred to him that if Picard had to be there, it was probably a good thing Q was with him. No one was going to be kneeling in front of anyone with that entity around. 

The turbo-lift seemed cramped with Picard and Q in it together, and Chakotay fought the urge to make small talk. He certainly had enough discipline to last the trip in silence. 

He'd forgotten, however, that Picard was a diplomat. 

"I imagine your duties as first officer on this ship are somewhat unique in Starfleet," the captain noted. 

Chakotay nodded. "We've all had to make a lot of adjustments, the captain in particular, when it comes to what the ship and crew need out here." 

Picard nodded thoughtfully, and Chakotay got the distinct impression that Q was keeping himself from making a comment. His respect for the captain rose another notch. Anyone who could keep Q in line... 

"I must say I'm particularly impressed with your continued research in the Delta Quadrant. The temptation to put everything into the fastest ride home must have been considerable." 

"We've had some problems caused by sheer curiosity," Chakotay admitted with a smile as the doors opened and he gestured the captain out. "But we've learned more than enough to compensate." 

Again, Q seemed to struggle to keep his mouth shut as he walked in front of the first officer. Chakotay hid his own rather different smile now as he led them the short ways down the hall to the ship's best guest quarters. 

"I look forward to seeing more of your ship during the next few days," Picard told him as they walked inside. "Captain Janeway told me abut your resident chef." 

Chakotay chuckled, keeping close to the door. "You still won't be prepared to meet him, trust me. And if you're hungry now, the replicators are working fine these days. If you need anything further, please let me know." 

"Thank you, Commander," Picard said with his hands clasped together, nodding at him slightly. Chakotay took his dismissal with a smile and walked out. 

Only as he was walking down the corridor alone was he struck by the look he'd seen on Q's face as he left. It was almost...possessive, and it was aimed at Picard. 

What did the entity want now? 

Chakotay shook it off. If anyone could deal with Q...and besides, he got the distinct impression from something in that look that it was all none of his business. 

Picard was looking at that same Q expression as the doors closed behind Chakotay, and he scowled at it. 

"But I was on my best behavior!" Q protested. "Didn't you notice?" 

Picard sighed. "Q, yes. Yes, I did notice that you restrained yourself admirably. I also happen to be exhausted. And so are you, in your way. If you don't mind, I'm going to have something light to eat and go to bed." 

Q frowned and snapped his fingers, and a bowl of soup appeared in a formal place setting on the table. 

Picard looked down at the food, and suddenly he didn't want to eat, he didn't want to sleep, he wanted to grab Q and hold him close. He wanted to be kissed and touched and brought to pleasure, then fall asleep in a pair of strong warm arms. 

"You're spoiling me," Picard growled, tugging down the old-style uniform Q had told him he should wear and then crossing his arms over his chest. He wondered how angry he would have to get Q to make him leave. 

"They're trying to save replicator energy, you know, so I'm just trying to help. Don't you want your soup?" 

"Q, if I kissed you on your forehead would you go away?" 

"You know, I could run you a hot bath," Q suggested. "I rather like the idea of seeing your skin all soapy again." 

"Q! Back off, damnit!" 

"But I can tell that you want me," Q said simply. "I was going to wait until you had some dinner, but you don't want it anymore, do you?" Picard glared at him suspiciously. "I've been watching you for so long, and recently so very intimately. And now your breath is shallow and your pupils are dilated and it's as if I can see how hard your nipples have gotten under your uniform." Q took a step forward, frowning when Picard backed away. "I don't understand. I thought we'd gotten past this. Or...is this about this morning? I said I was sorry." 

Picard felt himself flush at the memories of all that he'd felt that morning, and the look on Q's face which had made him feel it. 

"How about I make it up to you?" Q said, his low voice full of suggestions. "Maybe you'll trust me enough now to roll over and let me make you come with my tongue." 

Picard almost moaned as he remembered that sensation, his ass actually tingling, then abruptly looked and felt ready to fight. "That's just it, Q. I don't trust you. I can't trust you, ever! Look at what you've done with these people, this ship! I watch you with them and I can't believe what I'm seeing." 

"I've treated them all very well!" 

"You involved this ship in a Q matter by trying to get Janeway to have your child, and you're doing it again by simply snatching them up and expecting them to obey your orders!" 

Q's eyes went suddenly very wide. "You're jealous." 

"I most certainly am not!" 

"You are! Jean-Luc is jealous of Kathy!" Q doubled over in laughter. "Oh, that's hysterical! I can't believe it! How stupid! HA HA HA HA!" 

"Q!" Picard resisted the urge to take a swing at him. " _Q!_ " 

"Well, honestly, Jean-Luc." Q straightened up with difficulty and wiped tears from his eyes. "I only asked her because I knew you'd never say yes...would you?" 

"Of course not!" 

"Exactly. Besides, I didn't really want to have a child. I was just looking for something to do, I guess." Q smiled suddenly, and Picard was annoyed to feel his heart thud. "Besides, I'm in love with you and only you, Mon Capitaine. You have no call to be jealous of anyone, ever." 

"I'm not jealous," Picard insisted grimly, "I'm just uncomfortable with the thought of intimacy in any form with someone as amoral and interfering as you have proven yourself to be." 

"Sticks and stones, Jean-Luc," he replied airily, though his eyes showed a flash of pain. Then he let his voice drop again. "I think I'll stand you up against the wall and suck on your cock awhile." 

"You think what you like! I'm going to sleep." 

Picard spun around and headed for the bed, well aware that he was shaking. Q walked directly after him, as he'd known he would. 

_I'm behaving like an idiot. Am I really so frightened that I'm going to ask him to fuck me?_

Q's hands came down on his shoulders just as he reached the bed, and Picard stood quietly as the entity drew up close to him, filling his body with warmth as his breath caressed his right ear. "You know I've gone too long without touching you." Q was slightly petulant now. A finger lightly teased his lobe. "I'll explode soon, and it won't be pretty." 

"Q...this morning..." 

"Yes, Jean-Luc?" Those large hands were going to his front now, moving slowly over his chest, brushing the fastenings of his uniform as though they were considering their approach. 

"I'm not being fair to you. I don't like how I'm treating you." 

"I don't like it either. Don't you know what it does to me when you turn off like this? If you're really bothered by it too, then go inside me right now and make up for it." 

"You want me to fuck you, Q?" Picard grated out. "Suck my cock? Pleasure me while you're reduced to fantasies about getting your turn?" 

The mouth which had begun to nibble cautiously on his ear stopped moving, and he felt Q pull back. Silence stretched out unpleasantly, and Picard turned around to see anger on Q's face. 

"You feel guilty," Q hissed. "Here I thought you were starting to want me back, and you feel guilty." 

Picard opened his mouth, then closed it. 

Q's eyes narrowed. "Fine. If guilt is all I can get from you, then guilt is what I'll take." 

Q moved forward, pushing Picard back not at all gently on the bed. Instantly, they were naked and Q was on top of him, touching him, kissing him, pressing against him with warmth and urgency. 

Almost as instantly, Picard was moaning, his body getting everything for which it had been pleading for hours. Everything felt wonderful and he was hard and aching and humming with arousal. How could Q do this to him? How could he just take from Q like this, so easily, so urgently? He'd been furious with Q a minute ago. What the hell was happening? 

Now he wanted to tell Q that he did want him back, that he had spent the whole damn day wanting him back. He wanted to explain the anger he'd felt for being unfair. He wanted to do a lot of things, but right that second he didn't want them enough to stop moaning and clutching at Q's arms. 

"Please," he found himself saying suddenly as Q nibbled at his neck. "Tell me what I can do to make you feel good." 

Q stopped, pulled back enough to meet his eyes. "You want to make me feel good?" 

"Yes, please, Q," the man whispered even while he felt a cold rush of fear. If Q wanted to fuck him, could he go through with it? He remembered Q on his elbows and knees, crying while Picard pushed inside him. He thought of seeing himself being fucked by Q, of living with himself afterwards. 

Q looked down at Picard and rode the surge of hunger in his body. He knew what the good captain was thinking about. Fear and hesitation warred in the man's expression, and yet he wasn't pulling back, wasn't saying no. 

Q took a steadying breath, held it, let it out very slowly, as Picard watched him, not moving. 

"One day, Jean-Luc, you're going to want me inside you, the way that I want you inside me. One day, you'll spread your legs and ask me and mean it, and I'm going to oblige you then, don't worry. But, you've got to understand, I don't want to be in your body if you don't want me there. I thought I did...that it didn't matter why you said yes, as long as you said it, but I've learned better." 

Picard's expression became a question, and Q smiled tenderly. "When you took me in your mouth, I could tell you really wanted to, and --" 

Picard had Q on his back before he could end the sentence, interrupting him further with a rumbling laugh. "Yes. Yes. Let me do that again." 

"No," Q said, holding Picard by the shoulders. "If you're offering to do what I want, then I want you inside me." 

Jean-Luc looked at him with fear again, but moved obediently when Q drew up his legs. His hands trembling, the captain took up the jar of lubricant which appeared and covered his fingers before closing up the lid and setting the jar down. He looked down to Q's erection, and the tight hole beyond it, and something pushed up from his own stomach. He labored against it, breathing hard as his chest was squeezed by that interior pressure. He oiled his own cock with one hand as Q's dark eyes watched, and reached for the entity's anus with the other, sliding in a finger to work the muscle gently loose. 

Q sighed, drawing up the man's eyes, and Picard could see Q's whole long body spread out and waiting for him, those long legs drawn up against his chest, his arms laying at his sides as his hands opened and closed, his expression so vulnerable and open and full of longing. The pressure in his own body increased. He felt hot and tight and fragile as a spiderweb of ice. 

He had three fingers inside Q now, and when his partner moaned and moved against his hand, Jean-Luc withdrew his fingers and placed the tip of his trembling cock to that ring of muscle. Q sighed and he pushed forward just a bit, the tight heat surrounding him. 

A tear fell on Q's chest. They both looked at it. 

More of Jean-Luc's tears followed as the pressure in his chest forced its way through the tight closure of his throat to produce harsh sobs, his whole body wracking with that demanding release, more tears rushing from his burning eyes as his arms crumpled, dropping his face to Q's body as he slipped out of him. His erection was lost now, and he felt that apart from the restriction at his throat his whole body had lost all strength. There was nothing but the pain releasing him, and endless, boundless, overwhelming sorrow. 

He did not notice that Q took gentle hold of him, rolling them over so he could curl all around him and press him close. He did not hear Q's quiet noises of comfort, or feel the stroking of Q's hands on his back, and for many endless minutes he knew nothing but an almost luxurious grief. 

Eventually, he became aware of something more than that long-held pain. He heard Q murmuring, "I've got you," and felt the warmth holding him. His throat ached horribly, and his eyes itched and burned, and he was slightly nauseated from convulsive sobbing. 

And somewhere, faintly, he felt better. He smiled sleepily against Q's chest, reveling in the surety that he would not be released. He could not describe the sensation inside himself any more expertly than that: he felt better. 

"Feeling better?" Q asked, but rather than feeling suspicious, Picard simply chuckled, only realizing then that he had soaked Q in the all the fluids that came with hysterical crying jags. Q hadn't cleaned himself off yet, hadn't protested, hadn't done anything but hold him. 

"Yes," he mumbled, feeling sleep coming. He was going to have a horrible headache in the morning. 

But Q moved slowly, cleaning his face now with a cool cloth he eventually pressed to his eyes. It felt so good he shivered. One of Q's hands stroked his stomach, soothing the knots there with simple gentleness. At one point he felt the rim of a cup pressed to his lips as Q held his head up slightly, and he drank something sweet and cool which further dissipated the ache behind his eyes. Then he laid down fully again, and long minutes passed while Q continued to comfort him with caresses, demanding no explanation, easing the last of the pressure in his head. 

Picard thought he might do a better job of describing how he felt now: it were as if he had been emptied of something hot and thick that he had carried for so long it had seemed a part of himself. As his body recovered from the exertion of crying, it felt as though he were floating, so light had he become, lying on his back on the bed, his arms and legs sprawled, his eyes closed, and the air cool against his skin while Q's hands stroked him. 

Picard shivered again. Both Q's hands were moving over him now, and the touches weren't light, random strokes anymore. They were changing into something more purposeful, and even as he still felt himself gliding slowly towards sleep, his blood quickened, and the erection he had almost put to use earlier was returning. 

"I was supposed to --" 

"Shhhh," Q soothed, and suddenly the cool cloth over Picard's eyes seemed to be functioning more like a gentle blindfold. He should have taken it from his face and looked at Q. He should have felt uncomfortable, but in his mind's eye he could see himself so clearly, laid out before Q, trusting him... 

Yes, good God, just at this moment he did trust Q completely. He couldn't help it, couldn't find what he needed to distance himself. 

"Yesss," he breathed, pumping his hips slightly when Q's fingers moved towards his groin. Light again, that touch moved over the stretched skin of his cock, teasing him, and he groaned into the darkness behind his eyes. Somehow, this felt so much more intense than he expected; everything was sharper and deeper and seemed to be sending so many more signals to his brain. He was acutely aware of the feel of the bedclothes against his back and buttocks and legs, the sounds of Voyager's engines, a little higher than those of the Enterprise, Q's smell...why hadn't he noticed before that the entity smelled just faintly of salt and sunshine? 

"So good," he moaned as Q's hands now worked warm oil over his cock. Q's touches were as expert as always, and he knew any moment they would make him come, but he didn't want to come. This felt wonderful. 

And with surprisingly little resistance, he was able to make himself say it. "Please, Q. Don't stop. Don't let this stop yet." 

"Whatever you say, Jean-Luc." 

The touches continued, however, so good and so perfect, and with a groan Picard felt the heat in his body gather...only to have it held at bay when Q's hands gripped him gently but firmly, preventing the climax. 

"Ohhhh, God," the man growled, pumping his hips now in rhythm with the renewed stroking of Q's hands. "So good." 

Q kept a close watch on Picard's every reaction, determined to do this perfectly. He hadn't yet decided what to make of Picard's emotional outletting, but he did know it had been good for a number of reasons. He acknowledged with a self-mocking expression which he was glad Jean-Luc couldn't see right that moment that he'd felt honored holding the man while he allowed himself that release. Q did, of course, understand why Picard didn't allow himself overt emotionalism in public, but in his opinion the man took it overboard. He knew Jean-Luc could count the number of times he'd cried over the last ten years on his fingers, and the number of really good laughs with the addition of his toes. He didn't want the man to lose the discipline he used to such advantage, but Q did want, quite desperately, that Jean-Luc would be allow himself to be happier, and to be sad when it was necessary without shame. 

Yes, that was it, Q decided as he watched Picard move so gracefully, so unself-consciously in synch the stroking of his hands, the cloth still over his eyes and his own hands now clutching the sheets as he made soft moans that went right to Q's cock. Picard was unashamed to be here with him like this. Of course, that would change the second anyone else figured out what he and Q had become, but for now, in this private room on a ship lost in the Delta Quadrant and currently tucked into this pocket of time, Jean-Luc was practically displaying himself for Q, allowing Q to do with him as he liked...within limits, of course. Being here like this was more than Q had thought he would ever get from the man, and he felt that sense of wonder returning to fill his heart. 

"I love you," Q mouthed at the captain, stoking that incredible skin just a little harder and smiling as Jean-Luc shuddered and thrust and groaned even louder than he had been. "We're together and you're accepting me and I love you," he continued silently, enjoying the fantasy that the man's noises were those of agreement. 

And watching him so closely, Q saw when Picard seemed to curl up slightly, holding back. 

"What is it, Jean-Luc? Please tell me. Do you want something?" 

He obviously struggled a moment, then whispered, "More." 

Q smiled with delight, unable to keep from teasing, "More?" even as he moved on the bed. 

"Yes, please." 

Q knew he was hoping to have Q take him in his mouth, but the entity had been hard for quite some time himself now and knew the good captain would not be up to another round tonight. 

Smoothly, he straddled the man's hips and lowered himself down. Picard's breath caught sharply, then released in several "ohhhs." Q hadn't prepared himself other than with lubricant, and so it hurt somewhat as that blunt pressure first stretched him, but soon he was all right, better than all right, enjoying the simple reality of having Picard's cock up his ass. Gently, he began to move up and down. 

_I could ride him like this back to the Alpha Quadrant,_ Q thought with a private laugh. 

"What's so...funny?" Picard groaned, startling Q, who hadn't thought he'd made a noise of any kind, other than a few soft moans of pleasure. 

But Jean-Luc didn't seem to mind the idea of Q laughing, and he found himself replying, "I'm enjoying the idea of having turned you into something...ohhhhh....something..." His own thoughts were adding to his arousal, and suddenly Q lost the distance he'd used for so long this night. Picard's cock was moving easily inside him now, filling him with that strength and pleasure, stroking that spot Human men had which drove him so wild. 

"Tell me...please." 

"You're...you're something I'm fucking myself with. You're something...for pleasure...for my pleasure...and you like it." 

"Yes," he urged. "Yes. Use me for your pleasure. Use me...this way." 

"Oh!" Q was straining now, pushing down and easing up over and over while his body caught fire, burning warmth from his core out to the shell of his skin. Picard's hands had come up to his hips now, guiding him, helping him to slam his ass down over the man's perfect cock. It was impossibly good, wild, and...so incredibly intimate, both of them so committed to this act of...lovemaking. 

Yes, Q realized, that was it. For the first time, sex with Picard felt like making love, and whether it were an illusion or a hoax or a crying-induced moment of hysteria on the captain's part he reveled in it. 

But this wasn't going to last much longer, and for the first time since they'd jerked each other off on the sofa Q was tempted to use his powers to prolong this artificially, and yet even as he fought that idea, he looked down again at Picard and realized what would happen to his semen when he came. 

And it was too much: Picard stretched out below him, writhing and moaning with that incredible voice, Picard's cock up inside him filling him so perfectly, Picard's sculpted chest and arms waiting to be covered in Q's cum. 

Q screamed and shot out all he had, clenching around the man's cock and almost instantly feeling his hot cum inside him, and it was all so perfect and _good_ that he almost started crying himself, but settled for more screaming. 

Picard came hard and didn't recover. Exhausted and spent, he slid right into sleep, murmuring something Q couldn't understand without his powers. He rested a long moment, then eased Picard out of his body and cleaned them off before lying down beside him and wrapping him up. 

Picard had been right earlier: Q was tired even for a Q. If he had been on his own, he would have returned to the Continuum and rejuvenated with the energy of the connections there. 

_This is better,_ he thought, letting his mind drift as he listened to Picard breathe, and played over and over again in his mind what they had done together. He knew, of course, that Picard would never love him, but he was beginning to believe that the man would come to care for him, perhaps even deeply, with time and with more of these sorts of nights together. In fact, he thought it quite likely that Picard thought very well of him right now, and that thought, along with the sweet ache in his ass and the feel of the man's body in his arms, warmed Q with more energy than he could find in a hundred Continuums. 

  
"Good morning, Commander," Neelix chirped, eyes brighter even than usual. His orange chef's outfit also seemed a little cleaner and straighter, and the kitchen was immaculate. 

"Good morning, Neelix. What's good today?" 

"I'm trying French Toast this morning. People are saying it's very tasty." 

Chakotay smiled. "Sounds good, thank you." 

Neelix took a little longer than was needed putting four slices on a plate, and the first officer sighed. 

"I don't think he's up yet, Neelix." 

The Talaxian nodded, eyes dropping to the plate as he put it on a tray. "Do you think he'll come by for breakfast?" 

Chakotay took the tray. "I don't know. But it looks like he's going to be on the ship a few days. I'm sure you'll meet him." There was no one else waiting to be served, so he made a "come with me" gesture with his head as he stepped away from the counter. Neelix smiled happily and walked around to sit with him at a table, his hands fidgeting with the small centerpiece, re-centering the flower in its vase. 

"I've read quite a bit about our visitor," he began as Chakotay tried the French Toast. Neelix hadn't been lying about the taste, and the commander couldn't help being glad that the days of strange green and purple substances with "just a touch of spices" for breakfast were long gone. 

"Really?" he asked, not entirely willing to reveal to Neelix that he had done the same, though he did add: "Captain Picard's career is well-known to most people in Starfleet." 

"I imagine so," Neelix said, his eyes somewhat wide as he finally left the centerpiece alone. "I was reading about the time he arbitrated the succession of the Klingon Empire, but the files were so very incomplete..." 

Enjoying the cinnamon taste of the toast and wondering if Neelix had had to replicate it or actually found a Delta Quadrant equivalent, Chakotay took a second to figure out what his companion was really after. 

"I'll see what I can do about getting you clearance to read the more complete files," he said, eyes flicking to Ensign Wildman as she came in with Naomi at her heels. 

"Thank you, Commander," Neelix said quietly as he rose to greet his latest customers 

"No problem," he said back, then turned to finish his meal. He couldn't help feeling pleased with Neelix for being so interested in their guest, though he wasn't sure why. Perhaps it was just that everyone in Starfleet (however troubled their career may have been) couldn't help feeling proud that Jean-Luc Picard was among their ranks. He and his Enterprise crew couldn't have done more to fulfill the ideals of Starfleet and the Federation in general. He wondered if even Q could tell how many races they had made successful first contact with, how many lives they had saved, how many wars they had prevented, including one which would have made it impossible for him to have met and served with B'Elanna Torres. 

However, he couldn't help thinking with a frown, there was one war the Enterprise hadn't been able to prevent. Picard had been there at his very own homeworld right when the fighting broke out in earnest. He very much wanted to ask the man what it had been like dealing with Cardassians as they laid claim to the colonists, and what he thought of the whole conflict. 

There, that was what he really wanted. He wanted to ask Picard what he thought of the Maquis, what he thought, in particular, of Chakotay's own decision to leave the fleet and help his people. Would the man understand? Somehow, it would make him feel better if the captain of the Federation's flagship would see his point of view. 

Chakotay shook himself and stood up, then carried his tray to the counter. He was going to have to watch himself closely the next few days. Q had all but said that if Picard told them too much about the Alpha Quadrant he'd erase their memories of these days, a thought which did not appeal at all. Moreover, he would need to watch the crew as well. Everyone here wanted to know things the captain knew, and someone wasn't going to be able to restrain themselves. He trusted Picard not to reveal anything, but he didn't want the man pestered to death. 

Paris and Kim watched him go, managing to catch his eye and nod their "good mornings" across the room. He nodded back, restraining himself from reminding them that their duty shifts started in ten minutes. There was very little toast left on their plates, and they were holding their cups as though getting ready to drain them. 

Kim waited until the doors closed behind the commander, then asked his friend, "What do you mean?" 

"Think about it, Harry. Most everyone on this ship would give a major organ for the right to ask Captain Picard a few questions, Chakotay included. It's going to be hard for him to keep the path clear, that's all I'm saying." 

"Do you think he knows whether Starfleet got our messages?" 

Paris sighed. "Probably. And he knows what's going on with the Maquis, the Klingons, all of it." 

Kim knew whom Paris was thinking of right then. "You don't think she'd actually --" 

"No, I don't. I just wish there were someone way everyone could..." Paris' expression became thoughtful as his eyes turned to the Talaxian behind the counter. 

"I know that look," Kim said warningly. "What are you thinking of doing?" 

Paris looked back at Kim and smiled. "Oh, it's not _my_ place to do anything, Harry." 

Up on the bridge, Chakotay sighed. He should have reminded them of their duty shifts after all. 

But no, just in time, the turbolift doors opened and Paris and Kim came out together, with Neelix in tow. He saw Janeway stand up, hands on her hips. 

"Hello, Neelix. Is there something you need?" 

"Actually, Captain," Paris started as Kim headed for Ops with a somewhat uncertain look on his face, "I was hoping we could both speak with you." 

"Certainly, Tom," she said, gesturing to the ready room while Paris made eye contact with Bateheart, who nodded back easily and continued to man the con. The ship wasn't going anywhere, after all, and the shift had been strenuous only in being a bit boring. 

  
Picard's eyes opened when Q chuckled. The entity was lying beside him, his arms around him and the covers pulled over their chests. He realized he was using Q's shoulder as a pillow. 

"What is it?" he asked, his voice thick with sleep, but his head clearing quickly. 

"Oh, just something Tommy-boy's up to." Picard frowned and Q shook his head playfully. "You don't want me spoiling all the day's surprises, do you?" 

Picard smiled back, finding it remarkably easy to do so. "I suppose I shall have to get used to your knowing so much that I don't." 

Q looked surprised that Picard should say something like that, but kept his eyes twinkling with something like mischief as he replied, "I'm amazed you didn't get used to that the first time we met, considering everything I do know." 

Picard seemed to consider his words, slowly reaching out his right hand beneath the covers to caress Q's thigh. The body next to him shivered, but Q's expression carefully didn't change. 

"I sometimes wonder if you know what you think you know," Picard rumbled. 

"I know everything," Q assured him, his voice just a little strained as Picard's hand reached a little further towards his center. The touch was light and warm and he was beginning to get a little hard. "I'm a Q, even if I'm an expatriate." 

Picard grumbled a laugh, one fingertip tapping the soft tip of Q's penis. "The Qs' idea of 'everything' is rather limited, I think. Right now, for instance, you don't know what I'm planning on doing to you, do you?" 

Yet even as Q was shaking his head and moaning at the sensation of light touches now up and down his cock, an image popped into his head of himself spread out on the bed, the covers still up to his chest, while a shape under the covers moved over his hips. Since he had sworn to himself never to lie to Picard, he was going to tell him about it, when Picard reached over suddenly and kissed him, driving all images out of his mind and filling him instead with pleasure. 

"So good," Q groaned into Picard's mouth. His lips moved confidently against his, so intimate, so thorough, so expert. Q felt his tongue inside his mouth, curling around his own tongue, stroking the roof of his mouth, running inside his lips. Suddenly, the man bit at his lips just slightly, making Q gasp and thrust hard into the warm hand pleasuring him. Picard laughed softly and began kissing intently down Q's throat, nibbling at sensitive spots, then down his chest and under the covers. 

Q's eyes went wide as Picard slipped from sight, looking down at himself as the bedclothes bulged and shifted. 

_Lucky guess,_ Q assured himself, not wanting to think about anything other than the mouth now nearing his cock, kissing and nibbling on his lower stomach. Picard had done this once already, and Q, who had learned to fear boredom, was delighted to realize that it was only better now for the anticipation. 

Q chuckled again. He might know "everything," but he still had much to learn. Picard, in his own way, was right about that. Right now he was learning about love, about how much it hurt that it wasn't returned, about how it made him greedy, about how it filled him with happiness when Picard did anything even remotely nice, about how it changed sex from an activity relying on novelty and expertise to something so simple: Picard touched him, and his Human body sang. The more intense the touch, the louder the song. 

"Ohhhh," he breathed now, nothing in his mind but the feelings washing through him as Jean-Luc's mouth covered him with warmth, and the softly rough texture of his tongue stimulated his cock into throbbing and leaking, the organ heavy between his legs and yet leading him through flight. "I love you." 

Picard's hands, locked onto his hips, now moved, one to cup his testicles and the other up his body and then away to find his hand. Q held on tight, trying to convey how good this felt. 

"Janeway to Captain Picard." 

If they hadn't already been inside a temporal anomaly and balanced on the edge of the repaired rent in the universal fabric, Q would have tucked them safely away somewhere where they could finish. 

As it was, he could only watch without protesting as Picard released him and whipped back the covers to reveal two prominent erections and a mouth shiny with saliva and precum. If he could have done it quietly, Q would have come just looking at those wet lips. 

"Picard here." 

"We're picking up a reading none of us understands. Could you and Q come down to the Astrometrics Lab?" 

"On our way. Picard out." 

The captain looked at Q ruefully, then frowned when Q raised his fingers. 

"We seem to be inconvenienced," the entity noted with resignation. When Picard nodded, he snapped his fingers. Instantly, they were both clean and dressed and unaroused. 

"To be continued, Mon Capitaine?" Q asked hopefully. 

"So it would seem," he replied levelly, moving off the bed, tugging his out-of-date uniform into place, and heading for the door with Q at his side. 

At least as far as he knew, this was the first time Q had used his powers to manipulate his body, and though it was done with his cooperation, so to speak, he didn't like it. The morning's pleasant dalliance turned sinister. What did he think he was doing? How had he become Q's Human sex partner, his mortal diversion? He was only now beginning to realize just how troubled he had been, and still was, by his encounters with the Borg, but had he come to nothing better than _that?_

They stepped into the turbo-lift, and even as he stated, "Astrometrics lab," Picard wondered why they were bothering. Why didn't Q just snap them there? Why didn't Q just fix all this and make a big bed and chain him to it and make him enjoy it until Q was tired of this and of him and went on to fuck something else? Was Q only still here because Picard hadn't bent over for him yet? 

"Jean-Luc?" 

Picard frowned, his arms crossed and his eyes down while anger surged through him. Q sounded scared. Ridiculous. 

"Jean-Luc, what did I do? Please, don't --" 

Picard shot him a look and Q seemed to quail into silence. 

The captain took a breath and held it. The lift was slowing and he needed to focus. In fact, it was easy to shove all his anger someplace where he couldn't feel it. Disturbingly easy. With his head clear, Picard worried about how often he did that: put his feelings away so casually. He knew he did that more often than he took them out again. 

_Help me, Q._ A tiny thought, barely heard, instantly silenced. He needed Troi, or perhaps Voyager had a counselor. 

The doors opened, and Picard allowed himself to finish the long-practiced procedure and think of nothing now but the damage to the universal barrier. 

Janeway watched them enter and thought it instantly: something was wrong. Whatever problems were damaging space outside, they somehow seemed unimportant next to the damage potential there in the room with her. 

But Picard said only, "Have you been able to localize the disturbance?" 

"Yes," she told him, hoping Seven would return soon with her report on the realignment they'd needed for this scan. "But the energy readings we're getting are in flux, and they're playing havoc with our instruments." 

"You need to tell your computer to ignore all non-reading information, or it will continue to overload your systems," Q told her. 

"I don't understand," Harry Kim said from Janeway's elbow. She watched Picard and Q look at him, prepared to leap to his defense against either as necessary, but Q was actually patient as he explained: 

"Your scanners, like all Federation scanners, begin a new subroutine whenever they encounter something new, a subroutine which is maintained as long as there is a chance for encountering that data again. With the universe's boarder shifting like this, new configurations are constantly pouring in, then disappearing. You need to tell the monitoring system to end the subroutines as soon as the data stops." 

"Understood," Kim replied, nodding, then looked at Janeway. "It should only take a few minutes to reconfigure all the systems, and I can alter the scanners we're using here right away." 

"Do it," she said, then turned as Seven entered, looking puzzled. 

"I was unable to locate..." She stopped, staring at Picard. 

_Locutus,_ she thought, instinctively reaching out to him with her mind, seeking the song of the Collective. And it felt almost as though he responded, connecting just too faintly for her to hear. 

Then she blinked, shaking her head slightly, reminding herself sternly that Janeway had warned her of this, had told her Jean-Luc Picard was aboard. 

"I was unable to locate the source of the power surge," she told him, apologizing for her lack of perfection. 

"Nothing here will make perfect sense," he comforted, filling her with the urge to run to him, to touch him, to be centered by him. 

"I had hoped my knowledge of the realm of Species 8472 would enable me to anticipate at least some of the power fluctuations and compensate for them with a minimum of ship's damage," she said instead. 

"This is a completely different sort of phenomenon," he soothed. 

"Yes, it is," Q stated at just a touch over normal volume, and with difficulty she shifted her gaze to the representative of Species 14. When the Borg allowed ambitious dreaming, the conquest of his species was a favorite. Truly, _then_ they would have perfection beyond perfection. 

_Don't ever look at Jean-Luc like that again,_ Q thought, having difficulty himself in not thinking it _at_ her, _or I'll see the Borg never so much as assimilate an insect again. Honestly, how dare an ex-Borg look like a glamour queen? At the least she should be dumb as a post and shallow as a puddle. Sometimes, the universe just doesn't play fair._

"I've reconfigured the monitoring systems," Kim announced in a voice at least as loud as Q's had been. 

"Resume scans," Janeway told him, her eyes not moving from the heightened peril of the room. But then Picard, Q and Seven seemed to reach an understanding, and turned from each other to look at the viewscreen. 

The nearly-forgotten spatial damage showed clearly in the three-dimensional starfield. It hadn't moved beyond its microscopic size, but it had increased in width by a factor of seventy-four. 

_It's damage all right,_ Q thought. His omnipotence was really letting him down. The particle of non-universe which he had missed was connected to his own command for the universe to be cleared of all such debris. When he had defined what he wanted to get rid of, he had created a piece of it which hadn't been cleaned as it was part of his desire. With a thought, he got rid of the definition, and the damage was gone. He searched the whole area again and again now, looking for anything he could have missed, and found nothing, just as he had found nothing before. 

His own words to Picard returned with their old, inexorable meaning: "Being able to do whatever one wants and being able to _have_ whatever one wants are not the same." 

"All trace of the anomaly has been cleared," Kim reported, running a second cross-check even as he spoke. Seven nodded and went to the rear console, and so Janeway was the only one able to see what happened when Picard murmured just perceptibly to Q: 

"You'll get it all eventually." 

Hot desire, gratitude, tenderness, adoration: they filled Q's face in an instant, and he turned slightly and just as quickly to send all of that Picard's way. The captain only frowned back in return, and, somehow, Janeway managed to get her eyes down before Q finished wincing and looked away. 

_So that's why Q's not coming on to me,_ she thought, relieved at her comprehension, but unable to tell what she thought of Q's interest in Picard. Part of her wanted to admonish him in the name of Humanity to keep his hands off, part of her wanted to laugh at Q for thinking he stood a chance, part of her felt sorry for Q for having fixated so inappropriately, and part of her -- 

Oh, she didn't have time for parts right now. Q was trying to seduce Picard and the captain was doubtlessly using it to keep Q in line. Well, good for both of them and good luck to all. The important thing was that Q seemed serious about and quite capable of repairing the damage to space in this sector. As long as that continued until their mission here ended and he returned Voyager to their previous location, she would be happy. 

"Well, Captain," Picard said, a little loud himself and moving away from Q, whose expression was now impassive. "I was hoping perhaps for a look around your ship." 

Janeway smiled in genuine pleasure. "I'd like that. And I'm sure my crew will as well." 

"Have fun," Q tossed off before flashing out. Janeway noticed that Kim relaxed a bit even as Picard frowned slightly yet again. 

"We've had to make a number of alterations in our ship's space allocation," she began, gesturing to the doors, then paused at Seven's movement. The captains both looked towards her. 

"Captain Picard," she said, and Janeway was amazed at the emotion in that usually strong voice, "I have observed the Human custom of inviting others to meals when conversation is desired. I thought you might perhaps have time while you are here to share such a meal with me." 

"Certainly," he responded in full diplomat mode. "Perhaps at dinner this evening in the messhall?" 

She nodded regally. "That would be...appreciated." 

Picard smiled, nodded, and then moved to the doors with Janeway at his side. She very much wanted to make a comforting comment about the nature of being ex-Borg, but squashed it, going instead into great detail about the ship's allocation of living, working, and production space. 

The tour took about three hours, and Janeway would have worried that she was babbling or otherwise drawing out the experience for her own pleasure, except that Picard asked all manner of questions. They were both careful to discuss nothing but the ship's current status, never going into the causes for certain repairs, or the history of necessity which had caused specific inventions. 

Picard never once commented on the Maquis insignia of so many of her crew, nor did he once seem to treat differently any of the people who stared at him from a distance, walked a little too close to him, responded with restraint to his questions, or simply greeted him with overt pleasure and curiosity. 

Engineering had been particularly pleasant, since they could discuss so much about the ship's design, including the bio-neural packs, without worrying about giving too much away. Indeed, the conversation they had there could have taken place entirely in the Alpha Quadrant, except when Lieutenant Torres was surprised by Picard as she came around the warp core with a padd in her hands. 

"Captain!" she had said, obviously non-plussed. 

"Lieutenant," he responded with a smile. 

"I...didn't know you were here." Indeed, she'd been inside a Jefferies tube for the past four hours, and no one had bothered to tell her she was having a visit from _him_ at all. If she hadn't come out to test her repairs, she would have missed him completely. 

"That speaks all the more highly of your section's efficiency," he responded. "Looking around, there's no way I can tell it's been years since you put into dry dock." His smile became charming, and she realized her hands were holding the padd in a death grip. "You know, I have a chief engineer of my own who would enjoy a chance to have a talk with you." 

"Actually," she got out, "I've met your chief engineer...at a symposium...at the Academy. He gave a fascinating presentation on plasma conversion, including some theories I've had an opportunity to use out here." 

Before she could kick herself for bringing up something so irrelevant, his eyes actually sparkled with interest. "Yes, I'm familiar with his theories in that area. When you get this ship back home, I'll see that the two of you have the opportunity to conference at some length. I know he'd be delighted." 

"I'd...like that." 

_Is the war still going on? Did Starfleet get our messages? Did the Borg reach Earth again? Has everyone given up on us? Is my mother still alive?_

"Sir?" Carey asked from her side. "I have the manifold readings you wanted." 

She managed to pivot with a professional smile, still very much aware of Janeway and Picard as they turned to look at the warp core, and took the figures, steadying herself with a deep breath she hoped the others didn't notice. 

The tour ended on the bridge, and Janeway was privately quite pleased when everyone stood up to greet Picard as he walked through the turbo-lift. He nodded at them with a smile. 

"As you were, please." 

They complied, and Picard walked immediately to the conn as he said, "It's good to see you again, Lieutenant Paris." 

Janeway had often seen Tom smile. He had quite a variety of them, from annoying smirk to genuine dazzler, but this smile was new to her. It wasn't ecstatic, and yet it glowed; it wasn't effusive, but it seemed to encompass a wealth of good feelings. 

"It's good to see you as well, sir," he said simply. 

"I've been hearing quite a bit about the Voyager's response time, but I thought I'd better ask the pilot personally." 

Paris nodded with satisfaction. "She's fast all right. If we weren't stuck in a time pocket with nowhere to go, I'd offer you the controls." 

"And if I weren't sure the crew would feel safer with you at them than with me," Picard said in a low voice, "I'd take you up on it." 

Paris laughed, then confessed, "You know, I didn't think you'd remember me." 

Picard looked vaguely incredulous. "How could I forget the only cadet there who actually knew how to fly? I'm pleased you found a ship to match your talents." 

_Much more of this and I'm going to be offering to polish his boots._

"Thank you, sir." 

As if sensing that Paris had had enough of being singled out today, Picard nodded with a smile and turned to the security station where Janeway was ready to introduce Tuvok. 

An hour later, a little tired from smiling but pleased to be walking on his own without incident, Picard slowly made his way back to his quarters. He was a little irritated with himself for putting off this return for so long. Q couldn't go anywhere, and wasn't going to feel comfortable talking with anyone but himself. He probably couldn't even use his powers to entertain himself. In this situation, Q was depending on him, and he'd abandoned him at the first opportunity all because... 

Because why? 

Because he was so good at what he'd been doing for the past several hours, and so bad at dealing with Q. 

He walked quietly through the doors, and looked around, wondering if Q would actually be there, or if he would have to talk to the room to get him to appear. 

A noise from the bedroom directed his steps, and as he quietly reached the doorway to the next room, he felt shame and contrition wash through him in a devastating wave. 

Q lay on the bed, sprawled out on and around the covers, masturbating with his eyes closed and his free arm wrapped around Jean-Luc's pillow. His closed eyes were set in a straining face, and over the entire picture he made was the gray cast of joyless escapism. Picard couldn't help but notice that the bedroom was crowded with what looked like some sort of intricate geometric puzzle, or a model of a puzzle of something which seemed familiar, and Picard was certain that Q had been using it to pass the time alone. 

Guilt stabbed at him. He was somehow absolutely certain Q hadn't realized he was there, that this was no trick or show or play for attention. 

"Oh," Q said from the bed, a desperate, unhappy noise, as he stroked himself harder and buried his face in the pillow he was clutching. 

_I'm an asshole,_ Picard thought. _I've been an asshole since this started. Q's been one too, but that's no excuse._ He remembered Q talking of spending centuries looking for a Picard to be the willing recipient of his love. Was the frustration of that what he was seeing now? 

Q writhed strongly on the bed, gasping like a runner trying to make it up the last of a steep hill, and Picard was there in a few quick steps, reaching for Q's body. 

"What?" Q barked when the man grabbed his hands and pushed them aside. 

"I'm sorry," Picard confessed, kneeling to get into position. "I'm so sorry." 

"Oh!" Q said, the sound so very different now as Picard took Q fully into his mouth. As hard as Q had been stroking himself, there was very little precum, but even as he noticed this there seemed abruptly to be more. Q's body was twitching beneath him, restrained, always so restrained, always holding back and trying to keep himself in line. Q _had_ been on his best behavior, _had_ been acting responsibly to repair the damage he'd done, and Picard had run off at the first opportunity. Janeway could have tolerated having Q along on the tour if he'd asked. 

He eased up enough to say again, "So sorry," then went down as far as he could, forcing himself not to gag, and sucked hard. 

"AHH!" Q screamed, bucking his hips and coming deep down Jean-Luc's throat. Somehow, Picard managed to swallow, to last with Q through this, to draw out the orgasm with continued stimulation and pressure. It was a little rough, but delicious, and the guilt inside him eased into something less sharp and much warmer. 

Q lay still, except for the movement needed to allow his shuddering gasps, and Picard rose up on his knees as he began to strip off his uniform. He wasn't hard. Too much was going on in his mind for that. But he was suffering urgently the need to feel that soft warm skin and muscled strength that was Q and no one else. Naked at last, he slid down beside Q and wrapped him up. After a time, breathing quietly now, lying together, they met each other's eyes, and Picard was surprised to see once again that Q looked embarrassed. 

"I meant to finish that before you got back," he admitted in a whisper. 

"Why?" 

Q shrugged as best he could with his arms tightly around Picard. "It was obvious you weren't in a hurry to take up where we left off. I didn't want to jump you." 

Picard was about to laugh at that. Q had certainly had no compunction about pushing his way into sex before. But then he realized: 

"You didn't end what we were doing, did you? You just paused it." 

Q shrugged again and nodded. 

"So you've been feeling...aroused since we were called to the lab?" 

"Well, I didn't want to waste it, so I side-slipped the energy a bit." 

"I have no idea what that means," Picard noted wryly. "In time, will I understand how Qs manipulate energy?" 

Q's breath caught a bit. "If you want to. We could certainly work on it." 

"I would like that." 

Q sighed with pleasure, and Picard looked at him. The entity flushed, and the man felt something hard poke his thigh. 

"What did I say?" Jean-Luc asked with amused wonder. 

Q squirmed slightly as he confessed in a voice strangled with embarrassment, "You said you would enjoy doing something with me." 

"Q, stop being so...astonished!" He rolled them so that he looked down at Q, straddling him. "Listen to me: when you're not purposefully tormenting me, I enjoy talking with you. When you're being serious or at least earnest, I enjoy working with you. And I really enjoy touching you and being touched by you." 

Q simply stared at him with large eyes. Jean-Luc sighed. 

"Do you need me to prove it to you, Q?" 

Q kept staring and Picard smiled as tenderly as he could, unaware that his eyes were just a little sad. He kissed Q quickly and gently on his half-open lips, then got off his body and laid down beside him on his stomach. Q didn't move at first, but then Jean-Luc felt hesitant touches on his back. He closed his eyes. Yes. He needed to do this. He needed to put this hurdle behind them. He needed to see if Q would leave once he'd gotten what he claimed he wanted. He needed be able to reach for Q without guilt. He needed to know that he was treating Q like an equal. He needed to show that he wasn't only a taker. 

The touches grew a bit more bold, gliding over his skin, and he sighed, trusting Q to hurt him as little as possible. He saw himself as he had before: being fucked by Q. But it no longer seemed a degradation. If one of Q's friends jumped out to mock him, he could respond simply that Q had earned it, that this was something he had wanted to give. 

A kiss on his shoulder now, and the touches on his back were incredibly soothing, relaxing him, preparing him. He went with it, allowing Q's magic to remove worry from his mind. Q kissed a little lower this time, finding his spine. He arched with the sensation, feeling heat and beginning to be seriously aroused. 

"Yes," he said quietly as his heart sped. He pressed himself slightly into the bed, gliding along the sheets, and again he was struck by how alive he felt when Q touched him. "Yes," he said again as the kisses continued down his back. Q's lips were always so skilled, so perfect, so adept at finding the little spots in his body that responded with hot excitement. He spread his legs naturally, inviting Q to continue, to enter him, to join with him and remove the awkwardness of his reticence. Kisses now moved over his buttocks, gradually moving to the center, and suddenly Picard's heart was racing and his erection pressing with strength into the mattress. Was Q going to do _that_ again? Oh, but it would feel... 

"So _good,_ " he groaned as Q's tongue entered him. Now that he was relaxed it was absolutely the most erotic sensation he'd ever known. How could anything feel this...purely sexual? Oh, it was so intimate, as though Q had access to his soul...as though...as...oh, poetry failed him. He stopped thinking, his whole body humming a chord which blocked out all but pleasure and the wish for more. 

_This is enough,_ Q thought, moving his tongue inside Picard's body, targeting with ease each nerve-ending, rejoicing as he got such an instant and complete response to even the slightest change in stimulus. Picard trusted him enough to do this, and claimed basically to enjoy his company. If that were true, then Q's life was now going to be okay. They would be able to stay together then, to have a relationship, to do what needed doing in this universe to provide the constant it needed not to be destroyed. Something he had never told Picard, something he knew the captain wouldn't have understood or accepted, was that even knowing it would eventually end this universe, Q couldn't have forced himself on Picard forever. If the man had continued to resent to him, to wish him gone, then Q would have left. 

Oh, Picard would have objected on principle, blackmailing himself with thoughts of the universal good in just the way Q refused to do. So Q would have made up some plausible alternative, made them pen-pals or something, and he would have taken his somewhat pathetic self elsewhere and waited for the end. What did the universe matter to him, anyway? Five billion years of a stupid existence. He knew the universe wouldn't have ended before Picard's death, and the man had no children to worry about. In fact, Q had thought about how he might have to prevent that after he left the man alone. He wouldn't want the cosmos to destroy itself while Picard's child was alive to see it. 

And now all those thoughts could leave him, and that horrible worry could be eased. Jean-Luc had given him permission to stay in saying that he enjoyed being with him, and so he would stay, and make the man as happy as he could, and do with him whatever this universe needed doing. Loving someone and being useful: what more could a Q want? 

Picard wasn't lasting much longer, so Q pushed harder against the most sensitive spot and slipped his oiled hand around the organ Jean-Luc was grinding mercilessly into the sheets. The man screamed, his body convulsed, and the cock in Q's grasp spurted hot cum. Q came as well, just from the pleasure he was witnessing, just from knowing he was the cause, and then he cleaned them off and slid up the bed to lie beside the man he loved a long, quiet and sated time. 

But Picard had other ideas. As soon as he came down from his climax, he was turning to look at Q in bewilderment. "But, you didn't..." 

"Oh, I came," Q assured him. "It was lovely." 

"But I thought..." 

Q smiled at him. "Thought what?" 

"I thought you were going to fuck me." 

"I told you I didn't want to until you wanted me to," Q replied patiently. "And I'm beginning to realize that's not going to happen." Picard was obviously going to object and Q laid a finger over his lips, delighting in the way the man simply looked at him, accepting his need to speak, not objecting to being "ordered about" or something. "It's all right. Not everyone enjoys being the recipient of anal intercourse. I can live without it. It's not important, as long as you let me make you come in other ways." 

Picard's eyes narrowed, but he knew he should be relieved. He should be rejoicing, actually. 

"And, of course," Q said with a smile, "as long as you continue to fuck _me._ " 

After a moment, because Q was waiting for it, he nodded. Then involuntarily he yawned. 

"Excuse me," he said. 

"Go on to sleep, Jean-Luc," Q urged. "I've got you." 

"I have to meet one of the crew for dinner." 

"I'll make sure you wake up." Q held him a little tighter, and Picard closed his eyes. 

"Jean-Luc?" 

"Hmmm. Yes?" 

"It's time for dinner." 

He frowned. "I slept?" 

"Like a baby." Q smiled fondly, and the man noticed the entity was back in his black pajamas. His frown disappeared. 

"Those are lovely," he said, snuggling against Q and enjoying the way his face lit up. 

"You like? They're a little like yours, I guess. There's something so nice about silk, isn't there? I like satin, too, and velvet." 

"Of course you do," Picard chuckled. "Besides, it's only right considering that's how you feel when I touch you: silk and satin and velvet." 

Q groaned and rolled his eyes shut. "Oh, you did that on purpose." 

Picard laughed. 

"You've got to get to dinner," the entity groused now, keeping his eyes closed as he turned onto his back. "They're all waiting for you." 

"Hmm," Picard replied, not wanting to think about the messhall just yet. He rolled over, ending up on top of Q while those dark brown eyes opened to stare at him with love. He warmed himself over that look at though it were firelight, and then lowered his head for a soft, deep, exquisite kiss that warmed him further. He left Q's mouth with reluctance. "Is it really time for me to go?" 

Q nodded unhappily. "I can't stop time in temporal pocket, not without stress to the construction. I'm sorry." 

Picard laughed. "To think I'm with someone who apologizes for that." 

Q looked hesitant, then just smiled and asked, "Will you fuck me when you get back?" 

"Of course." Picard thought a moment, ignoring the protests from his body about doing something to Q right _now._ "In case it runs long, why don't you come fetch me in an hour or so? I don't want you getting bored again." 

"They'll want you longer than that and my puzzle's pretty good. How about two hours?" 

Picard kissed him gently. "See you then." 

Picard dressed quickly and left, and Q lay on his stomach and thought about his life. He imagined the countless times he would watch Jean-Luc go to his job and then wait for him to come back. He thought of the times he might leave for some reason, and then return to find the man in his bed, dressed in his wonderful pajamas, allowing Q to touch his gorgeous body, pleasure his perfect cock. He thought of Jean-Luc growing used to having him in his life, of the way he might say to Riker or Troi one day, "I'll speak to Q about that," or "I was just talking with Q." He thought of giving the man presents, of watching him explore the cosmos, of telling him jokes and watching him laugh, of listening to him talk about the way he saw the world, of being with him and feeling welcome. 

Then Q thought of what Neelix was going to ask Jean-Luc to do and he laughed with mischief. It was hard on Picard, he knew, not to tell these people about the Alpha Quadrant, about the war with the Dominion and the state of the Maquis. But Q also knew that in a few weeks Seven would doubtlessly find the communication network which would allow them to make contact with a small section of the Alpha Quadrant. The Prometheus, a Federation warship prototype, would be maneuvering in that area, but would, according to plans now being hatched in the Tal Shiar, be attacked by Romulans and captured. Janeway would probably make the decision to risk her beloved holographic doctor on that communication network and on that solitary ship, and Q knew that the Doctor's interference with the Tal Shiar's plans would have significant repercussions. Janeway's faith in the stability of the Federation would be a part of her decision to send him. Any news of home had a great chance of influencing that and several other vital decisions which faced Janeway and her crew. 

Q sat up and looked at his puzzle. It was actually a schematic of the universe he was experimenting with to see it he could make something which would independently monitor the universe's boarders and alert him at the first sign of instability. It was the sort of project he knew Picard would approve of, and he wanted to finish it as a sort of present before they left Voyager. 

With a smile, he snapped his way into some comfortable clothes and got to work. 

Virtually every last Voyager crewman who wasn't on duty was trying to fit into the messhall when Chakotay walked in and made some very loud noises about inhospitable crowds and good impressions. In the end, the room was peopled with hastily elected representatives who promised to "report back" to a variety of social groups. 

Seven, standing by the counter and waiting for Picard, regarded the entire affair with a raised eyebrow. She understood their desire to see him, obviously, but once again was struck with Human inefficiency and discord. The Borg would never act in such a fashion merely to observe an individual. 

_No, we would just assimilate him._

Seven sighed very quietly. It was something her mind was doing more of lately: taking little shots at itself, showing a Human level of disharmony within her own self. Such discomforting behavior was one of the reasons she had asked to speak with Captain Picard. She was hoping to silence just one of the voices inside her. 

He entered without fanfare through the messhall doors, and to do them credit none in the crew stared at him, nor did the conversation level drop. He stood a moment looking around, then saw her and walked to the counter with a smile on his face even she could see was polite. 

"Seven of Nine," he said as he came to a stop before her. 

"Captain Picard," she responded. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me." 

"My pleasure." 

"Captain Picard," a determinedly cheerful voice broke in, "I must tell you, this is really quite an honor for me and for all of us here on Voyager." 

"Thank you. It's an honor for me to be here as well." 

"Neelix," Seven said. 

"Yes, Seven? Have you decided what you want to eat?" 

"Whatever you have is certain to be equally acceptable." 

Picard actually sniffed slightly. "Something does smell delicious," he commented, "like tomato soup." 

Neelix smiled so broadly that Seven wondered if it didn't hurt. "Yes! It's something Tom Paris taught me to make. I got the tomatoes from our last stop, at a lovely little planet which had a most temperate climate. They're not completely like Terran tomatoes, of course, but they are quite close. Would you like some?" 

"Yes, indeed." 

Seven accepted a bowl of the soup as well, and then led Picard to a table by the windows. No one stared at them overtly, but as they were actually looking over the meal at each other she realized that she felt uncomfortable and on display. These were not sensations she was used to. 

Picard took a sip of the soup, waited a moment, then reached for his glass of water. 

Seven ignored her soup. She wasn't hungry. But then, she was never really hungry. 

"In a few moments," she warned, "Neelix will come to this table on some pretext, and then ask you to be a guest on his daily address to the crew." 

"Oh, really?" Picard continued to eat his soup. 

"I must therefore speak quickly, before we are interrupted by another account of his cooking history." 

Picard smiled but otherwise waited impassively for her to continue. 

"Since becoming independent of the Collective I have come to realize the...inappropriateness of my actions within the Collective in regards to the assimilation of others. I have come to understand the value which other independent individuals place on their autonomy." 

"It does make up a great deal of our sense of self," Picard responded levelly, though there was something in his manner which suggested he was uncomfortable. He was no longer eating, and his hands rested on the edge of the table. Nevertheless, she needed to continue: 

"Because of my increased appreciation of the need in others to be free from a Collective consciousness, I find I regret my participation in the selection made for the role of Locutus." 

Picard didn't actually move, and yet somehow everything about him had changed. She was not certain what it meant, or what he was trying to tell her in sitting so still, his eyes not moving from hers. She frowned at him slightly, puzzled and uncertain. 

"You helped to choose me for Locutus?" he asked quietly. 

"The Collective chose, but my...opinion...or at least, my ability as a Human to provide parameters for the choice was consulted. By using my knowledge of my own anatomy, I was able to help determine the extent of your special abilities which would make you ideal for the role." 

"My special abilities?" Still the voice was quiet and still she was certain that she was not reading his "body language" completely. 

"Your intelligence and knowledge were evident from your position on the Enterprise and the way your crew, under your leadership, interacted with the Borg cube. However, it was also clear from the scans we performed at that time that your brain was capable of more than the usual level of Human sensitivity." 

"My brain?" 

"Yes." Seven realized she wasn't being clear. The language she was having to use was frustratingly inefficient. "I believe you would refer to it, though somewhat incorrectly, as your telepathic abilities. It was clear that you would be able to interact at a highly efficient rate with the Collective." 

"But I thought that was taken care of by the Borg implants." 

"Yes." She nodded, gratified to know she was making sense now. "But they will only work well with species...and with an individual whose mental abilities are capable of processing the information. Once your brain was exposed to the energy of the Borg communication network, it was clear that it would become quite receptive to the input. That, combined with your intelligence, experience, and decision-making abilities, would provide the bridge between Humanity and the Borg which the Collective desired." 

Picard was a statue now, as emotionless and inscrutable as a Borg drone, and for some reason this did not comfort her. "You said that my brain would become receptive. Would that change be undone by severing my link to the Collective?" 

Seven frowned. "No. The change was permanent. Although, perhaps 'change' is not the right term. It is a question of increased sensitivity." 

"So I will always hear them?" he whispered. 

"The Collective? When you are close enough to a cube or other Borg community, yes. As well, contact with other beings capable of telepathy should add to your heightened sensitivity. Perhaps you have already noticed it?" 

"Is the soup to your liking, Captain?" Neelix inquired. 

"It's delicious," Picard said, turning his eyes to the Talaxian. 

Neelix beamed. "I was a little worried it might be a little spicy. I've learned Humans don't care for the zestfulness found in most Talaxian cooking." 

"You've adapted admirably." 

Neelix beamed even brighter. "I wonder, Captain, if I might ask you for a small favor. It was the idea of one of the crew, actually, I mean, another one of the crew." He shook himself slightly. "I was wondering, I have this morning briefing -- in fact, that's the name of it, 'A Morning Briefing With Neelix.' The crew do seem to enjoy it. It's a chance for the officers and crewmen to learn about all sorts of social and professional goings-on on board the ship, and --" 

"I am sure Captain Picard has grasped the concept of your program," Seven announced. 

"Yes...sorry." The Talaxian stared a moment more into Picard's immobile smile and blank hazel eyes and plunged on: "I was hoping you might agree to be a guest on the show, Captain. You could tell me whatever you feel you could tell us about...whatever you feel comfortable with...sir." 

"I don't believe that would be wise," Picard replied, "considering the danger that my revealing of information might have on the ship. Q --" he almost stumbled on the simple name "-- has made it clear that he will need to erase your memories of our visit if any future decisions on the part of the captain or crew might be compromised." 

"I see." Neelix looked slightly down, then up. "I see. Well, thank you for considering it." 

Picard nodded, then watched him retreat. His eyes returned slowly to Seven. "Is that all you wished to speak with me about?" 

"Yes." 

Picard rose, and Seven rose with him, aware that something was wrong, but unable to determine the source or the solution. 

"Thank you for voicing your regrets to me," he told her somewhat tightly. "And now, if you will excuse me." 

Seven nodded and watched him walk out. The second the doors closed, everyone except Neelix was staring at her. 

  
H smiled, humming slightly to himself, Human fashion. The model was coming along nicely now, it was only an hour before he would be able to fetch Picard and then... 

He hummed a little louder, and stepped back from his model to see if he finally had the parameters right. 

And saw Picard standing in the doorway. 

"Ack! You startled me!" Q sparkled and sped across the room. "Can you tell what it is yet?" 

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

Q stopped, a foot or so between them. 

"What is it? What's happened?" 

"Nothing. I had dinner with Seven of Nine, the ex-Borg. You do remember her, don't you?" 

"I remember her." 

Picard looked at him, and Q became aware that he was cold. Indeed, his hands and feet were cramped with the ice of Jean-Luc's stare. 

"Please tell me what's wrong," Q begged, watching as Picard's face finally showed expression, slowly turning to disgust. 

"I thought you wanted me to fuck you when I got back." 

Q swallowed convulsively, his voice thin as paper when he could speak. "I did." 

"I find I'm rather in the mood for it myself." The stare which had frozen Q now crackled as pure ice in Picard's cruel eyes. "Why don't you get yourself into position?" 

"Jean-Luc?" 

"Here, on the floor, Q." Picard pointed. 

"Aren't you going to tell me what's wrong?" 

"Now, Q. Or forget it." 

Shaking, sick, the entity bent down, forcing himself onto all fours. If Jean-Luc wanted to punish him for something, he had omnipotence on his side. He could certainly take it. 

"It will be hard to fuck you through that uniform, Q." 

He needed to stand up. He needed to argue with Picard and find out what was wrong. He needed to face him, not cower like this. But perhaps if he gave just a little more, maybe then Picard would tell him what was happening. Perhaps if he just tried to love him by doing what he said... 

He didn't snap, just wished his clothes gone, and waited. Picard stood there a moment, an eternity while Q felt naked and cold as a newborn c'thuala pig. Then the man knelt down, and with relief Q raised his eyes to meet his stare. 

"Do you know what you look like, ready for me like that?" the captain asked, his voice thick with emotion. 

Q cautiously began to relax. "Something you want?" he hazarded with a small smile. 

Picard grabbed him with both hands by the hair and jerked him painfully forward almost until their noses were pressed together, and Q began to let go of this moment. He couldn't bear this, couldn't be _all_ here while Picard did this. 

But then he remember the fragile space outside, and his responsibility to monitor it, to be here to repair the damage he had done. He bit his lip to quell a sob and stared into the face of unconcealed hatred. 

"You knew what the Borg did to me. You knew they sensitized my telepathic abilities." 

Q felt confused for half a second. The Borg had done so much to Jean-Luc. "Yes," he said. The grip on his hair tightened. 

"And you knew that your own abilities would trigger mine." 

Q began to get it. Hopelessness washed through him, but still he said, "It's nothing like that, Jean-Luc. It's not at all the same." 

"I've felt it!" Picard shouted, letting go of him as though he were something unclean and backing off with a renewed look of disgust. Slowly, Q stood. "I've _felt_ your thoughts, your feelings. I told myself I was imagining things, that it was all simply coincidence and how well we know each other." 

"I love --" 

"I never asked for you! Not once! I've never wanted anything to do with you!" Then Picard somehow got control of his thundering anger and spoke in almost a plea: "Don't you understand, Q? I can't _do_ this. I can't stand the idea of someone in my head like that again. So unless you're willing to use your powers to coerce me, I can't be with you." 

Finally Q felt anger nudge him. "I would _never_ do that!" 

Picard shook his head. "No, you don't understand. I want you to." 

Q looked at him, then away, blinking, then back. "What?" 

"The universe needs us to be together, unless I somehow misunderstood you." He waited for Q's nodding confirmation. "And I'm incapable of being with you. So I -- whatever I in my autonomy exists as -- cannot stand here and demand that the universe end over my lack of ability. You must change me, make me whatever you like, Q. I give you whatever permissions you need. Turn me into your adoring lover." His lips actually formed a smile. "And while you're at it why don't you add in a desire on my part for anal sex? I somehow doubt you really will be happy without that." 

Q turned away from Picard and walked around his puzzle to stare out the window into the non-time of the stars. Somehow, this was just what he had been expecting all along. It was almost a relief to feel his heart breaking. 

It almost amused him to think that Jean-Luc doubtlessly believed he was struggling with some sort of temptation here. The man couldn't realize that his suggestion was a nightmare. Q could sooner torture Jean-Luc to death than change his being, force him into loving Q...it was laughable. Obscene. 

Q turned from the window and used his powers to smile. "Thanks for the thought, Jean-Luc, but it isn't necessary. I've been thinking about this, about what we could do if you just couldn't stand having me around, and I've come up with an appallingly simple plan." 

"What?" 

"In all the universes, I saw so many combinations of Picard and Q, so many different sorts of relationships, but I was primarily paying attention to the romantic ones." His smile became lightly self-mocking. "After all, I knew _I_ wasn't capable of the friendships I saw, all that intimacy and all of it platonic." Q shuddered. "But there are friendships that are intimate in a way I could stand well enough: corresponding friendships." 

"You want us to write letters, Q?" 

Q nodded avidly. "Yes, think about it. We could...consult on all sorts of decisions, all sorts of plans. We could like each other from afar." Picard looked doubtful. "Couldn't you even like me a little when I'm not around?" Q asked, sounding a little hurt. 

"Of course I could, but...would it be enough?" 

Q shrugged and lied, "Why not? We would have a functional relationship. We could even be important to each other. We'll just have to give the letters a lot of thought, not be casual about them." 

Q walked forward with his hands on his hips, and Picard didn't walk away. "In fact, we can begin immediately. Do you see my little model here?" 

"Yes." 

"It's for a monitor, to watch over space without Voyager or me around. It should only take me a few hours to get set up in space, and then I can return you to the Enterprise. While I'm working on it, I'll make a written report and you write back to me." 

"How?" 

"It will show up on your monitor, like any other message." Q smiled. "Admit it. My plan is better than yours." 

Picard crossed his arms. "Will you be able to tell if it's not working? If the universe begins to get unstable?" 

"Yes, I will." Q seemed to feel the beginning of the unraveling right now, but it might just be his Human guts twisting. He realized after this discussion was over he would never make himself Human again. 

"You will inform me if that happens? We'll go with my plan instead?" 

"It's a deal." 

Picard relaxed, exhaling a long breath that actually ended in a half-way friendly expression. "This is...very good of you, Q. And I am...sorry." 

"You gave it your best, as always." Q raised his hand to snap it, and thought of asking for a good-bye kiss. But no, he really couldn't stand it. "Look for my message," he said instead, burning into gold-pressed latinum every last detail of Jean-Luc's appearance, from his tidy uniform to the slow nod of his head. So lovely, and for a short time, almost his. He snapped his fingers cleanly, knowing Picard was looking with relief at his little flash of light for the final time in his existence. 

Outside the Voyager, he did need a few hours to set up the monitoring system. It wasn't perfect, but it didn't need to be. The universe here needed only to maintain its cohesion for as long as the rest of the cosmos remained, which wouldn't be long now. When it was in place, Q created a second model, this one of himself, to write Picard letters based on whatever the man wrote him. 

And then he returned Voyager to the place where he found it and Picard back to his cabin. He felt the man's surprise and relief when he did not actually appear, and then, unable to resist it, he looked inside Jean-Luc's mind. 

It was just what he'd thought. Picard didn't actually hate him now, but there was no love there, and never had been. He could see a sort of lurking affection which he supposed would grow over time and his continued absence. He checked his letter-writing model one last time, then left. 

And it was just in time, he saw. The Continuum were all looking for him. Altering Jean-Luc to force a relationship was unacceptable to Q, but not to his colleagues. At least they all knew better than to try it themselves. Any Q who messed with Picard would have Q to face, and Q had on his side the insane grief of several centuries of foiled hopes, he thought as he hid in the smallest section of the cosmos, then winked out to a place of non-being. Here, not breathing, not moving, Q found that time passed quickly, and he lasted out the end peacefully enough. 

He was aware when Jean-Luc retired to France, and the model let him know that the man often wrote of how important Q's letters had become to him, and that he had asked more than once for Q to visit him. He also knew all about the three times that the man fell in and out of love before his death, and that he had no children even without Q's interference. He was acutely aware, of course, when the man died, and even bothered to absorb the details of his funeral. The eulogies by Admiral Tom Paris and Vice Admiral Janeway struck him as particularly moving, but doubtlessly only because of the memories they evoked. All the surviving members of the Enterprise command crew were there, of course: Riker, Troi, and Data. Wesley Crusher was there as well, and Q noted with some interest that the talented Human reached out for him during the ceremonies. He was tempted to send him a message, but knew the man had figured out on his own that his universe was soon coming to an end. Crusher himself had sought no children. 

And indeed, in the seven years that followed Picard's death, a growing number of species realized the fate that was soon to become manifest. The Continuum gave up looking for Q, of course, but he stayed where he was, ashamed that he had not been able to serve them all better. He did wish them more than they were going to get. 

Primarily, though, Q didn't pay attention to the outside world. He stayed within the realm of his mind, playing over and over again all the moments with Jean-Luc. He thought of meeting him at Farpoint, of the trials, of the temporal anomaly, of the time he'd lost his powers, of taking him to prehistoric France. 

But mostly, Q thought of being on his knees or his side as Jean-Luc fucked him. He would make himself forget the details, then live through it as though it were new, then forget and re-live it over and over again. He re-lived Picard taking him in his mouth and in his hands. He heard countless times his talk of how he was silk and satin and velvet. He thought of Picard lying on his stomach and giving Q permission to fuck him, and then coming with such joy with Q's tongue in his body. He thought of how he had once pressed himself into Picard's groin and imagined fucking him, and the way Jean-Luc forgave him for it afterwards. 

_He did care for me,_ Q finally said to himself, believing it. _Before he pushed me away that last time, he did care for me a little._

That thought and a few others allowed Q to feel almost brave when, one day, he realized the end was commencing. Too many random variables collided with each other, illogic took precedence, chance became certainty, and the stars began to wink out, first one by one, then galaxies at a time. 

_So dark,_ he thought, enjoying the Human feel to the sentiment. He could see the entire range of existence, the whole of reality going out as the universe reeled towards destruction. He had done his best to stop it, and he knew Picard had as well. Some things were no one's fault, and there was no bitterness, nor even fear. Why protect this life when all he loved had long passed from it? He felt a sort of relief once again, an easing of the burden of worry. Like lights in a thousand windows, the corners of the cosmos turned to black, and he almost opened his arms to welcome in the nothingness his world had to become. 

With unease, he realized he could hear screaming, someone shouting into the void, and hoped it wasn't himself. He had nothing left here but a little poetic dignity. How typical of him not to be up to it. 

There, Q frowned, the shouting was a little louder now: "Q," said faintly. Some sort of unconscious declaration of himself. 

"Q! Damnit! Answer me!" 

Q frowned a little deeper into the dark well. That sounded familiar. 

"Q! What the hell are you up to? Don't scare me like this! I swear, if this is some sort of prank..." 

_Jean-Luc?_

"Q? Q! Say that again!" 

What sort of apocalyptic hallucination was this? Had he gone insane? 

"Q? Please. _Please,_ Q! Answer me!" 

_I'm here, Jean-Luc. What are you?_

"Q? Why is it so dark here? What's going on? Why did you leave?" 

_Leave? You told me to go. You said you couldn't stand being with me. I wrote you letters...or, the model of me did._

"Keep talking. I think I'm close now." 

_Jean-Luc, what are you talking about? You're dead!_

"I most certainly am not! There, I've got you." 

Q felt a hand on his arm, which was odd, since he didn't have an arm. 

_Mon Capitaine?_

The hand smoothed up and over his shoulder and then he was wrapped firmly in a pair of strong arms, a pair of strong and familiar arms that made his body...his body? 

_What's going on, Jean-Luc?_

"You tell me. I came back from recording Neelix' 'Briefing,' wondering why you didn't come rescue me when you were supposed to, and there was nothing in the bedroom but your model-puzzle. Seven and Tuvok showed up with tricorders talking about how there was a spatial disturbance caused by your model, and then we waited for you to show up. When you didn't, I thought maybe you were inside your puzzle and didn't know the time, so I walked into it and found you here in all this darkness. Why _is_ it so dark? Where are we?" 

_The universe ended. After I left you...you did Neelix's briefing thing?_

"What universe?" 

_The universe, our universe...I thought. Wait, I was inside the model?_

"Q, can we please get out of here and back into the real world so I can see you properly?" 

_No. No, I can't go through that again._

"Go through what again?" 

_I can't listen to you tell me to leave you alone...well, actually, you told me to change you, to use my powers to make you love me._

"I would never say that!" 

_B_ _ut you did say it. And I knew you really couldn't tolerate me then, couldn't even pretend to care for me. And so I left..._ __

_...Jean-Luc?_

"I would _never_ say that, Q. And I do care for you. Very much. Now, let's --" 

There was only silence in the universe now, except for the very quiet noises of a kiss. Q moaned eventually, and that noise was added to the others, and when the kiss deepened, Q was certain the roaring in his ears was audible. 

Picard pulled gently away. His own ears roaring a bit. "Don't you understand, Q? I have to get you out of this place." 

Q nodded. 

"Good, now let's go." 

Q began to -- not exactly walk, but to move with Picard back the way he had come. He heard the whir of a tricorder and smiled, then wondered idly how Picard had seen him nod when it was so dark. He stumbled to a halt. 

"What is it now?" 

_You realize you're becoming sensitive to me? Like with the Borg?_

Q felt Picard frown. "It's nothing like with the Borg. Now, let's _go._ " 

Q laughed and nodded again, and Picard led them in the direction from which the tricorder said energy was leaking into the emptied cosmos they moved through. He supposed it was only Q's mind which made up the dregs of this reality, and hoped fervently that the whole illusion would last as long as was needed to get them out. 

It was odd that he had been able to say that so easily to Q, so confidently asserting that his link to Q was nothing like with the Borg. It had disturbed him greatly when Seven talked of his "abilities," but even as he'd thought to compare the experiences of intimacy, of _feeling_ Q's feelings with those of listening to the Borg's "song," he'd known there was no comparison. He'd been relieved then, greatly relieved by what he had realized was a nagging worry that Q's incalculable powers would cause a loss of himself, an assimilation into Q's consciousness that would destroy him, rob him of himself. But with Seven's explanation he'd realized the cause of those concerns: his connection with the Continuum had sensitized him, so it was only natural that any sort of telepathic communication with another would be associated with being Locutus. Now he realized in what ways he and Q's moments of connection were so different: a case of sharing rather than controlling, an experience not of conquest, but of love. 

Yes. That was easy to admit now as well, astonishingly so. He loved Q. His whole consciousness hummed with it. He'd not given a second's thought to the personal risk of walking into Q's model, and when he hadn't been able to find him at first, he'd been more than willing to die in this place looking for him. And when he'd heard the sound of Q's thoughts, absolutely everything had been all right again. 

There. He had a fix on the energy reading now, and hurried forward. Something pulled at him, and instinctively he pushed himself up against Q, turning to hold him tightly. They were going through the doorway together or not at all. 

_On three?_ Q asked, and the humor of it was ambrosia. 

"If you like. One, two, three." 

And together they stepped through the tear in the universe and wound up amongst the geographic, multi-colored shapes of Q's model. 

"Captain! Q!" Janeway announced with pleasure, her whole body showing relief as she took in the sight of them both. Tuvok and Seven were both running scans with their tricorders, and the Doctor was there, staying outside the model with his medical tricorder at the ready. 

"I assure you he's fine," Q snapped at the hologram, letting go of Picard with reluctance. 

"What happened?" Janeway asked, ignoring the Doctor's act of being offended. "Where were you?" 

"Were there readings of a disturbance before this happened? When did they start?" Q asked Tuvok. 

"Yes. The first energy readings began approximately four hours ago, around the time that Captain Picard was having his meal with Seven in the messhall, though we did not recognize them as part of the disturbance until after he had returned to this cabin." Tuvok raised an eyebrow at the tricorder. "The readings have now disappeared." 

Q nodded in satisfaction. "Yes. That will be the last of them." 

"I don't understand." 

"That's quite all right. It's hardly the sort of thing they teach Vulcans at the Academy these days." 

"Q," Picard warned indulgently as he stepped over to the Doctor and invited him with a gesture to run a medical scan. Q all but batted his eyes in response, refusing to acknowledge the way Janeway stared at him, and then turned back to Tuvok. 

"I created this model to detect disturbances in the spatial boarder, but what I failed to realize was that the reason I couldn't find all the disturbances was that they were created by my own consciousness." 

"So you said." 

"Not quite, but never mind that. When I passed through this universal boarder two years ago, headed out, I had an understanding of what the likely outcome of my future plans would be. In doing that, I created a universe based on that projection. My recent repairs only blocked the formation of this quasi-universe, and when I created the model of this universe, which of course fit exactly my parameters of my projected universe, it allowed a conduit for my projection." 

Tuvok nodded, urging Janeway to form a hidden smile. 

"Then your projected universe has now been destroyed?" 

"It destroyed itself, actually." 

Tuvok looked concerned. "You projected that our universe would be destroyed?" 

Janeway's thoughts propelled her forward and slightly into Q's personal space. He was tempted to kiss her on the cheek. 

"Do you still project that? Is there still a danger of it?" she demanded. 

"No," Picard said, stepping away from the Doctor, who was alternating frowning at his tricorder and looking at Picard with large eyes. "That danger has completely passed." 

Q smiled happily. 

"Paris to Janeway." 

"Janeway here." 

"I thought you might like to know we're back where we were and on course to the Alpha Quadrant at warp four...assuming you don't know already." 

"I didn't, actually, but I'm not surprised. Glad to hear it, Tom. Janeway out." 

"Well," Q announced as the model flashed out of existence. "We must be off." 

Janeway turned reluctantly to Picard, not knowing how to say goodbye. She had never liked saying it less. 

"Am I ever going to know what all this was about?" she asked. 

"Q and I just had some personal things to work out," Picard said with a smile, shocking even Q into wide-eyed silence. Seven looked at the representative of Species 14 and raised her eyebrow. 

"Personal things to work out which might have destroyed the universe?" Tuvok inquired. 

"Well," Picard said with a shrug. "He _is_ a Q." 

Janeway held out her hand. "It's been a real pleasure." 

Picard resisted his own temptation to bow and kiss that hand, shaking it warmly instead. "I'll see you when you get your crew back to Earth." 

"You will." 

Picard let go of her, nodded at Seven, and stepped over to Q's side. The entity winked at Janeway, and she smiled back, then the captain and Q were gone in a flash of light. 

"Captain," Seven asked, turning to look at Janeway, "am I right in perceiving a relationship of an intimate nature between Captain Picard and Q?" 

"I think so, Seven." 

The tall woman nodded. "Good." 

Janeway and Tuvok stared at her. 

"I believe the Borg will always be interested in reclaiming Locutus. It would take something like Q to be certain to protect him from that." 

And that, Janeway supposed, was a reason to be grateful. 

  
Picard looked around his cabin, noting that Q had put them both back in a proper uniform. Too bad. The others were easier to get out of. 

"Computer, what is the time?" 

"05:05 hours." 

Picard nodded, then looked at Q, who was leaning happily on the bulkhead. 

"Didn't we say something about my fucking you?" the man asked. 

To Picard's surprise, Q looked frightened for half a second, and responded with only, "Yes." 

Oh, he _hated_ seeing Q with that look on his face. Picard strode across the room and grabbed his lover by the arms, pulling him into a kiss that went on for a long, sweet time. 

Q was looking much better when he pulled back. "I love you," Q said simply. 

"Q, you said something before about stopping time." The entity nodded. "Could you do it now?" 

Q shrugged and said, "Okay. We're no longer being influenced by temporal forces. Why?" 

Picard smiled and led him to the bed. Swiftly, thinking fondly and yet with a little chagrin about the first time he had done this, he undressed Q right down to gently pulling off his underwear, then smiled more completely and stripped off his own clothes to stand there before those hungry brown eyes. 

"I wanted time to stand still and wait for us. I wanted there to be no hurry in getting you to believe that I've fallen in love with you. That I've been in love with you a long time now." 

Q blinked at him. "What?" 

"I thought you'd say that. I said, 'I love you.'" 

"But...I saw...I projected...you'll never forgive me about the Borg..." 

Picard shrugged. "I do forgive you. I forgave you when I forgave Seven." 

"You forgave Seven?" 

"After she told me she had played a part in the selection of Locutus, I told her I understood that she was only doing what she knew to do at the time, and that I forgave her. The same goes for you. You knew the Borg were coming for us, and when I said all those years ago that your help wasn't required you showed them to me. It saved Earth. That means it saved _me._ You know if the Borg had come along without warning I'd have died, or been assimilated fighting them." 

"You forgive me." 

"I can't help it, Q. I love you. Now fuck me." 

Q swayed slightly and looked lost. "Jean-Luc..." 

"Q, your entire version of the future collapsed around you. Isn't that enough? You're good at projecting into the future, but you're not perfect, and thank God for it. Now come here, my beloved..." he pulled Q with him onto the bed, "and get inside me." 

"But...you don't..." 

With a fierce growl, Picard threw him on the bed and himself directly after. He reached for Q's cock and felt it grow immediately hard in his hand. 

"So soft," he murmured as he moved his head down to place little kisses over the glans. "So _soft._ You're going to feel so _good_ inside me." 

Q groaned as loudly as he could and felt his whole body wracked with heat and excitement. "Oh, love..." 

"Hurry, Q," Picard urged, rolling over on his back and pulling up his legs. "Hurry." 

Q rolled over and looked at Picard, the drugged look of unbearable arousal returning to his face. "I can't hurry," he mumbled through irregular breaths. "I can't hurry. I have to take this slowly." 

"No, you don't!" Picard said, meaning it fiercely. The more he felt his love for Q the emptier his body felt. It was an amazing sensation, one he had no defenses against. He wanted Q to fuck him so badly he couldn't seem to think past it, couldn't understand why Q wasn't inside him right _now._ His body arched off the bed slightly and he moaned as Q slowly neared him. "Hurry." 

"I can't," Q grated out as he ran a hand down the inside of one of Picard's spread legs, shuddering with the feel of that warm skin over hard, stretched muscle. "I can't hurt you." 

"It won't hurt." 

"It won't only because I'm going to...ohhh..." Q's head fell forward as Picard caressed his cock. 

"I'm right here," Picard urged, lifting his hips slightly by pulling his legs back farther. "My opening, my ass, I'm right next to your cock, just push in." 

Q's eyes went wide, and he looked down at Jean-Luc waiting beneath him, spread out, offered up, really _wanting_ to be filled with Q's cock. He reached down to his anus with violently trembling fingers, touching the ring of muscle, and Picard almost spasmed. 

"Oh," Q breathed, pushing in just an oiled fingertip. "You're really going to let me...you really want me..." 

"Yes, please, hurry." 

But Q was not going to be hurried. He couldn't do anything to hurt Picard, nothing. He finished pushing in one finger and began to work the muscle. 

"This position isn't good," he said, trying to clear his lust-fogged brain. 

"I want to see your face. Please, Q." 

"It will be difficult for you. Roll over on your side." 

"No. Fuck me like this. It's what I want." 

Q couldn't listen to that voice say words like that, not if he wanted to be in control. He had to do this before he went insane, before he did something too roughly, before...oh, his cock was dripping onto the sheets and that pale, compact body was imploring him to enter and the unique and priceless soul encased in the body beneath him was offering up a unique and priceless love. He felt the urge to come and reigned it in with all his will, though he stayed away from his powers, thinking a universe' wealth of disgusting thoughts. 

Oh, the muscle was loosening now; Picard was sure Q's finger was moving in and out more easily, though there was so much lubrication it was dripping down his cleft and making it hard to tell when there was any resistance at all. Q couldn't have been more gentle, but Jean-Luc didn't want only gentleness. He wanted Q inside him, filling him without restraint. He wanted to be ridden, fucked wildly while he watched Q get all the pleasure he should have gotten the first night they were together. How could he have loved Q so deeply and not known it until he finally let go of the fear and bitterness in his heart? 

"Hurry," he urged. 

"Two fingers," Q whispered. "When you can take three I'll fuck you." He shuddered, his own words almost pushing him over the edge. 

Jean-Luc felt himself whimpering, _needing_ like he had never needed, on fire with it, and so empty he couldn't bear it. He tried to relax, to ease his muscles, to get Q inside him more quickly, but the entity was taking so much time. 

"Don't you want me?" he finally cried, tormented by the idea that he was alone in this. 

But Q met his eyes and then rolled his with an inexpressible need of his own, and Jean-Luc felt the fingers withdraw. Eagerly, desperately, he spread his legs as wide as he could, and then something so soft, so perfect touched his opening, and the man could swear that he could feel time standing still now. Gently, that incredible softness pushed inside him, and there was resistance, and a little pain. Q instantly withdrew, and Picard sobbed, "No. What are you doing?" 

"It hurt you." 

"Fuck me now, Q, damnit!" 

Q took a deep breath, held it, shuddering, and then pushed forward again. Picard's eyes filled with tears as he gasped out, "Ohhhh. I thought it would just be pressure, but I can feel it. I can feel the shape of your cock inside me." 

"Ughhhhh!" Q groaned, coming. He had been trying so hard not to, but he honestly couldn't help it. 

Picard stared in astonishment, watching the pleasure/pain expression on Q's face turn to rapture. _Here_ was the start of the joy he wanted Q to know, and while he thought that and felt Q's cum spurting inside the opening to his body, Jean-Luc came, splashing his own cum over both their chests, marking them both, completing the connection. 

They lay there a long while, gasping, before Q moved to get off him. 

"No," Picard said, holding him close. It was lovely to feel Q on top of him this way. 

"I'm sorry," Q whispered. "But I couldn't stop it. Just thinking about you...just thinking about what I was doing..." 

"Are you up to trying again yet?" 

Q reared back to stare at him. "Can I?" 

Picard smiled smugly. "You can fuck me whenever you want, Q." 

Q almost seemed to collapse against him, pressing down hard for a deep kiss that he tried to make hold all the love he felt. Picard was gasping even harder when he stopped, while Q was simply hard. 

"Please roll over," Q whispered. "It will be better for you right now." 

"But I want to see you." 

Q thought a moment, then almost melted when Picard stroked a finger between his brows, trying to smooth out the wrinkle. Then he smiled and snapped his fingers, and a mirror shimmered into place at the side of the bed. Gently, Q rolled Picard over to face it, and the man smiled. He was even more pleased when he realized it was no ordinary mirror, for it did not reverse the image. When he looked into the mirror at Q's face, it was just like staring at him directly. 

On his side, he had nothing he had to do, and he admitted to himself it was easier to lie here this way than with his legs pulled back. Q's hands were stroking his back and buttocks, and he thought then of all the reading he'd done for that second night. Of course, he hadn't paid as much attention to what the receiving partner did as the more active one. But he didn't mind it now. He was willing to do whatever Q wanted. It should have frightened him, but instead it only made him rejoice in the pleasure of trusting someone like this. He realized he had missed feeling that easy trust as much as he had missed joy and love. They all seemed to go together. 

And so it was all the more wonderful to watch Q's face as the entity moved his fingers again to his anus, feeling carefully, sliding in more lubricant, loosening the muscle again. He looked so serious, and yet his lips were opened to small, rapid breaths, and his face was flushed. His eyes flicked up to meet his in the mirror. 

"I love you," Picard told him, and watched and felt with increased pleasure as Q shivered against him and smiled back. 

"I love you too," he said, and then his eyes dropped, his hands encouraged him to arch back, and the softness returned to his opening and began to push gently but firmly up his rectum. 

Again he was amazed that he could feel so much. He tried to keep his eyes on Q's face, but they kept closing in pleasure. There, the pain returned, a faint burning pain of being stretched, but he breathed through it, and after a while of it and the knowledge that Q was fucking him, he felt Q's pelvis against his ass, and that warm sac pressed so intimately against his cleft. 

"All the...way in," Q panted. His face looked pained again. 

"How do I feel?" 

Q met his eyes in the mirror once more, and Picard was assured that he felt only pleasure, though controlled. He thought of Q controlling himself, of worrying about his pleasure, and his muscles relaxed a bit more. 

"You feel perfect." Q's voice sounded almost dazed. "You're so hot, and tight. You fit around me exactly. You're perfect, and you're letting me fuck you." 

"I _want_ this, Q. I love it. Don't forget that." 

Q shuddered violently, fighting off his climax, then whispered, "So I feel good?" 

"So far, wonderful," Picard rumbled with joy. "But I want more, please, Q." 

Q smiled, the near-drugged look returning. "Then hang on, my love." 

Q moved slowly at first, working up a slow-burning friction Picard hadn't been expecting. This was more than stimulation of his prostate, more than being filled, more than being fucked. His body ignited with sharply hot tingles, and he found this felt as good, though in a different way, as being licked out. In fact, he found he loved this, not just for the look on Q's face, or for the knowledge that Q was loving him with each thrust, but for the simple sensation of it. Q was pounding pleasure into him, filling him with strength and urgency and raw emotion. He loved feeling something so good, so deeply, so completely, his whole body and his entire soul were pushed farther and farther into it. He forced his eyes open and looked at Q's face, sweating and almost delirious as he pushed forward and back. 

"Love you," Q groaned, and the heat in Picard had filled him completely, as though he were coming in slow-motion even before the orgasm hit. Q felt the fire of it under his hands, felt the heat and strength that was Picard's body inside and out. There was no question for either of them about being loved, or about the lifetime together which faced them, a lifetime of exploring that love. 

"I love you!" Picard shouted. And suddenly he wanted to come, just so they could do this all over again. 

And Q, feeling that thought, reached around and stroked him hard, and they came together, riding their own pleasure and their lover's, and it just went on and on and on. 

Much later, when both of them were cherishing a special soreness inside, and they could talk together at least for a little while without a renewal of arousal, they lay tangled up inside and around each other's arms and legs, both of them trying to accept having gotten even more than what they had hoped for. 

"So while you were making up your mind about what to tell Seven, about how to react to the news that the Borg chose you in part because of your extrasensory talents, which they increased, I was in the model, and when I got pulled into the false universe, you acted the way I feared you would, and the projection continued on from there." 

"My poor love," Picard soothed, holding him tightly. Later, he would hear every last detail of an experience he suspected Q was making light of. But for now it was enough just to be here, to be in the real world with his lover in his arms. 

"What did you say on it?" Q asked. 

Picard snuggled against Q's chest and thought about black silk. Perhaps Q would let him tie him up in black silk sometime, and he would just suck on Q's cock all day. 

"Say on what?" 

"Neelix' show." 

"Nothing important, nothing interesting. He didn't ask what I wanted him to." 

Q wondered why he was suddenly having a vision of himself tied up in black silk with Jean-Luc sucking on his cock, and wondered if there were a chance in the universe he could get his lover to do it. 

"What did you want him to ask?" 

"I wanted him to ask about you. I wanted to tell him that I love you." 

Even as he felt warmed with the effusive endearment, Q asked in a worried voice, "What about when you have to tell you crew about us?" 

Picard chuckled and reached up to kiss Q on his forehead. "I'll tell them we're saving the universe each time we fuck, and then dare them to say a word." 

  
THE END 

  



End file.
